


Romance Can Blossom Any Old Time

by Celly1995



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Retail, Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Co-workers, Crack, Elf Shenanigans, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Flirting, Fluff and Crack, Getting Together, Ice Skating, Idiots in Love, Inspired by..., M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Nicknames, Santa's Elves, Santaland Diaries, Shopping Malls, Slow Build, very brief discussion of mortality (involving sick children)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9176515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celly1995/pseuds/Celly1995
Summary: When Jonny takes a job working for Winter Wonderland, he tells himself it's just to make some spare cash until his Real Job begins in January, at which time he can completely forget about the six weeks of his life spent as one of Santa's Elves. He expects crying kids, pushy parents, demeaning costumes, and fake snow. As it turns out, that's not all he gets out of the experience.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maccabird_23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maccabird_23/gifts).



> For maccabird_23, who asked for a Santaland Diaries AU with Jonny as Santa and Patrick as a Very Naughty Elf. I deviated a bit from that to suit my purposes—basically, I combined elements of her prompt with elements of Sedaris's essay, and just let the boys do their thing (...for a whole lot of pages). It's not quite the fic I'd originally planned, due to Real Life throwing me a couple of curveballs in the scheduling department, but I still enjoyed writing this a lot, and it was nice to find someone else in this fandom who enjoys David Sedaris's works. It's also lacking some of the tone and tightness of the original essay that I'd have loved to capture, given a bit more time—though I would like to point out that Sedaris didn't have to contend with the likes of these two wonderful idiots failing around flirtations and getting together in his own story. I hope you enjoy the result all the same. I also owe a massive amount of thanks to my beta, G, and to E for letting me ramble about this at her, and for sharing her own bits of experience and memory that led to a particular scene or two.
> 
> As an additional note, I completely cherry-picked and manipulated things like relative ages, dates, and certain other canon events and occurrences while ignoring other little things (like player trades) to suit my purposes for this fic. Handwaving abounds, especially in regards to putting some of these people all together in one job/location. AU all the way, baby

This is, Jonny thinks to himself as he finds a seat at one of several long tables, the worst idea he's had in a while—probably in his entire life. It was something decided while he was under too much strain to think properly, and if he didn't actually have plans for the money this temp position was going to give him and wasn't so against going back on his word on general principle, he'd walk the hell out of this room and never return, because there are definitely better ways to spend a Saturday morning. But he can't make himself do it, and that means the next six weeks of his life are going to be a period he tries very hard to forget, the second they're over.

"So now that you've all filled out the appropriate paperwork with our HR manager, Carol, let's get down to it, shall we?" the woman who introduced herself as Angie says from the front of the room. She looks pleasant enough, but the man sitting on her left has what looks like a permanent scowl on his face. "This is Joel Quenneville, and he and I will be your immediate supervisors while you work for us this season. Though you are employees of Winter Wonderland for all intents and purposes, you will also enjoy the basic benefits afforded to all other mall employees, including discounts, per our contract with the shopping center. All the relevant information can be found in the packet in front of you, which we will go over as soon as—ah, yes, here we go." 

Carol—who is perhaps forty years or so older than Jonny—steps up to the front table and whispers something to Angie. Getting a nod in response, she steps purposefully up to the front row of tables where all the new employees are seated and flips through a stack of rectangular pieces of paper as she consults the clipboard in front of her and jots down whatever the person in front of her tells her. She's clearly handing each new hire something specific to them, going slowly down the row, and Jonny takes the time to casually look at his new coworkers. It's split nearly fifty-fifty between males and females and, though there are a few employees in their thirties and forties and maybe a half-dozen in the sixty-or-so age range, the vast majority look to be in the heavily-desired eighteen-to-twenty-eight category Jonny remembers from the online job posting that got him here in the first place. 

He tries to get a feel for what each person might be like, but it's kind of hard to do. He wonders how many of them are college students, looking to make a few bucks during the break between terms, or if anyone here is actually really into Christmas. When asked, Jonny had given some bland answer to the job recruiter about how the holidays were a great time of year because everyone got into the holiday spirit and that was nice to see, and that hadn't got him disqualified or anything, but he figures there've got to be _some_ people in here who took the job because they thought they'd get a kick out of it.

Jonny probably isn't the kind of person _that_ kind of person has a lot in common with.

There are a handful of girls who are really cute, ones that look perfect to work somewhere like this, and even a couple of the guys look like they'll fit in pretty well, especially the shorter ones. There's a small group of four men sitting in a little cluster at one of the back tables, and they're talking quietly amongst themselves like they already know each other. One of the guys is at least old enough to be Jonny's father, another is probably another ten years older than that, but the other two are significantly younger, maybe in their thirties, and one of them's almost magazine-model handsome. He catches Jonny looking and winks, and Jonny spins back around in his seat just in time for the woman with the clipboard to reach him and ask for his name. "Jonny. Last name's T-O-E-W-S," he says, not even bothering to go through the whole thing where he says it and she tells him she can't find him on the list, because she's looking for a completely different spelling of his surname like every teacher, instructor, and employer has done Jonny's entire damned life. 

"T-shirt size, shorts size, and shoe size?" she asks, and Jonny gives her those answers, waiting as she records them before handing him his own rectangle of paper. "Put that on," she tells him before moving on to the girl sitting next to him, "left side of your chest, please." Jonny looks at the nametag in his hand, white with a blue border around it and his name written neatly in the center in black marker: Jonathan Toews. Under that, in bold green block letters, is one more word: 

 

**ELF**

\-- -- -- --

The next couple of hours are the same boring bullshit Jonny's gone through in almost every other job he's ever worked, starting back in high school: the reading of the company handbook, someone going over their general daily duties, a quick primer in how to work the cash register and the camera systems they'll be using—the absolute basics of the job. The only real difference at first is when Mr. Quenneville—who tells them just to call him "Q" if they're comfortable with that, like he's watched too many James Bond movies in his life and likes the nickname—asks how many of them can passably speak a language other than English, and then has them all raise hands to indicate which they are as they he goes through a list. Maybe ten people speak Spanish, Jonny's one of about five or six who can speak French, a couple of girls speak Italian, three people speak Japanese, one girl speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin, one of the oldest men speaks Korean, and there are a few people who speak Russian. There are also number of people who raise their hands for "other" and are instructed to talk to someone at the front desk about it before they take off for the day, and Jonny wonders if half of what he's heard about the US education system failing in language studies is totally inaccurate or if just this slice of Chicago is an exception before he remembers the job posting saying something about bilingual abilities being a plus and raising the rate of pay.

The orientation finally wraps up the stuff that has Jonny wanting to doze off, in favor of leading them all through the hallways hidden behind and between the mall's storefronts and out into the mall itself, which won't open for business for another hour. They funnel through the empty walkways, past darkened storefronts where the occasional light flips on as shop employees arrive and get on with the task of opening each store, and awkwardly bunch up as they approach the main food court. There's a large sunken sort of plaza in the middle of the food court with a small fountain near the entrance, and Jonny can see that there's some sort of small stage off to the other side, near the elevator. The rest of the area is roped off, and there are large plywood sections that act as walls behind the ropes, painted with sayings like "Under Construction," "Santa's Elves Are Hard At Work," and "Coming Soon: Chicago Outpost of Santa's Workshop!" There's also one exceptionally large poster board sign with glittery red and green letters that declares "SANTA WILL BE HERE SOON, SO GET YOUR CHRISTMAS LISTS READY," with a little calendar underneath it that has this coming Monday circled in red with "10:00 AM" written in that date's square. The signs are all very cutesy and fantastical, and Jonny's pretty sure this setup gets used every year, with the only thing to change being the calendar graphic. Q and Angie move a few of the boards aside to let everyone in, and Jonny can hear people murmur appreciatively as they filter through the narrow opening.

It's oddly dark inside Santa's Village, and it takes Jonny a moment to realize that's because there's some sort of covering overhead to keep the shoppers up on the second and third levels of the mall from seeing down into the area until the whole thing is ready to be unveiled. Angie clicks a switch hidden in a candy-cane-striped lamppost at the entrance gate, and half the lights go on just a second or two before Q hits another switch somewhere further back and everything else lights up. 

Jonny actually hears people gasp. He'd roll his eyes, except it _is_ kind of impressive. 

There's fluffy "snow" all over the ground, a base of thick cotton batting with glitter woven through it underneath some looser stuff that gives the appearance of snow drifts and hills. There's what looks like a small frozen pond not too far inside the gate, with a little group of polar bears sitting around it wearing scarves and holding fishing poles, and Jonny can see train tracks along the ground which he bets will feature an actual running toy train later. To his left, some girl mutters "Ugh, they put the polar bears and penguins together," sounding more than a little disgusted, and Jonny looks in the direction she's frowning and sees a display of penguins who look like they're sliding down a hill of ice and snow. 

"The bears won't eat them because they're Santa's bears and know how to behave, duh," another girl says, rolling her eyes, and Jonny's about to point out the numerous flaws in her argument, but someone else beats him to it.

"No, she means they don't even inhabit the same hemisphere, let alone the same continent," some guy says, laughing a little. "But I'm personally going to ignore it, because it's fucking cute." 

"Whatever," the second girl says, rolling her eyes again and pushing past them to get closer to the front of the group. 

The guy who clarified the first girl's point grins at Jonny and moves a little closer to Jonny's side, taking up the place the second girl left open. "Guess she missed that day in fourth grade geography, huh?"

Jonny snorts a small laugh. "I guess so," he says, glancing at the guy's nametag. It's got the same green "elf" designation underneath his own name: Patrick Kane. He looks like he's about Jonny's age, in his early twenties, even though he's smaller all around than Jonny is. He's got curly blond hair and blue eyes, and his crooked little smile makes Jonny think he might not look as stupid as an elf as most of the rest of them probably will—especially because he's kind of short. He doesn't get a chance to say anything else before Q gets their attention and starts acquainting them with the setup of what will be their workplace for the next several weeks. They're all split up alphabetically and shown different parts of Santa's Village as the numerous positions and jobs are explained in more detail, and Jonny loses track of him, paired instead with a bunch of people whose names barely register: Andrew, Brent, Jordin, Trevor, Kelli, Shaina, Jenny, a couple of others Jonny doesn't catch at all, and the guy who'd winked at him earlier—some other guy named Patrick, whose nametag marks him as one of the Santas. 

"You know, you don't look as whimsical as your average elf," the other Patrick—Patrick Sharp—tells him ten minutes later, while they're waiting for Andrew and Shaina to take their turns running the computer program that works with the camera they're going to be using. "You've got more of an 'I will kill you with the power of my glare' vibe going on than an 'I'm a cheerful little dude who makes toys for good little boys and girls' thing."

Jonny rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and Q looks like he's seconds away from murdering everyone he's ever met," he mutters quietly. "And yet, he's the head of this whole thing."

Sharp laughs and slings his arm around Jonny's shoulders like they're old friends. "Nah, he's cool. I mean, yeah, he can be a hard-ass of a supervisor when he needs to be, and he can yell with the best of 'em, but he's a good enough guy, despite what the eyebrows and mustache imply."

"You've worked for him before?"

"Last few years," Sharp says, grinning. His eyes flick down to Jonny's nametag and his eyebrows go up. "Your last name is Toes?"

"Tayves," Jonny corrects, trying to keep over two decades of exasperation out of his voice. 

"Nah, dude, I can read. That definitely says 'Toes'." He's grinning in a way Jonny doesn't trust—it's not malicious, but there's some of that self-amused cockiness Jonny recognizes as being specific to class clowns, the kind that aren't _legitimately_ assholes and who always end up being adored by teachers, coaches, and most anyone in charge of anything. He has the feeling this is going to come back to bite him, and he shrugs off Sharp's arm. Sharp doesn't look put out in the least. "They were just messing with you as a kid, telling you it's 'Tayves,' probably."

"It's Welsh," Jonny says with a sigh.

"You're Welsh? Sound more Canadian to me."

"I _am_ Canadian."

"Well, there you go, that's why I like you already, murder-eyes be damned. There's a handful of us here. There's like four guys who are roommates, this guy right here—" he points to Brent, "—and the dude he'd be married to if they weren't both into chicks, you, me, and that guy over there with the pinchable cheeks," he says, gesturing with a nod at someone across the village. 

"What, do you have some super sense for detecting Canadians?"

Sharp rolls his eyes. "No, but Carol in HR told me there's an influx of Canadians more than the three of us that've been here the last few years, because she thought I'd be interested." 

Sharp has to shut up when Angie calls Jonny's name and gestures him and Kelli closer to take their turn with the photo program. It's really not hard to figure out at all for anyone who's used a computer in the last five years, and Jonny completes all of the tasks Angie asks him to go through in minimal time, to her great approval. 

It takes just under an hour to get everyone through the work stations and get them a bit of experience on the actual equipment, and they're all herded back to the hidden office and meeting room in the back of the mall only five minutes before the mall is set to open. Q takes questions for a little while until Angie hands them each an index card with a locker number and combination printed on it. "That's officially it for the day," Q says, gesturing for them all to stand and head for one of the doors. "Girls, follow Angie; guys, follow me. We'll introduce you to the locker rooms and you can check your lockers to make sure they're all in good shape. We'll meet back here in this classroom at seven o'clock tomorrow morning for a few final instructions, and then we'll get you all set up with uniforms. Oh, and be sure to think about what you'd like your elf name to be—those will be finalized tomorrow. If you know yours now, feel free to let Carol at the front desk know before you leave, and she'll get it on the list. Keep in mind, this is how you'll be addressed any time you're in costume and in front of children and their guardians, so keep it appropriate and make sure it's something you can live with."

"Elf names?" Jonny murmurs to no one. No one said anything about elf names.

"What do you want to bet half of the female elves have stripper names?" the girl next to him says with a wry smile. It's the same girl who had an issue with the polar bears and penguins living together in Santa's Village. Her nametag reads _Amanda Kessel_ and has her elf designation in red instead of green; she's cute and blonde, but Jonny gets the feeling she could lay anyone who gave her too much shit the fuck out.

It's a trait he admires. He mentally adds her to the list of 'potentially cool coworkers,' which wasn't really a list he thought he'd be making with this job. Jonny half-smiles at her, because she's probably right, and she grins back, wider. "Just watch," she says as they file out the door and into another narrow hallway. "Someone's going to choose 'Glitter' or 'Cinnamon' or something."

Jonny laughs as they split off into their segregated groups and she heads into the girl's locker room. He wouldn't be surprised.

The locker room is a lot bigger than Jonny expected, and he's never really thought about how many hidden hallways and rooms there are inside a shopping mall this size. Logically, he'd figured there'd have to be _some_ back hallways, but Winter Wonderland rents out a classroom with an attached small office for a few months of every year for their Christmas and Easter photo-op business, as well as the two locker rooms in this wing. There's at least fifty lockers that Jonny can see, though they can't need more than half of them, tops. One of the walls is lined with five handwashing sinks and a lot of countertop space with a mirror running the entire length. There's also a small section of half-enclosed showers in the far corner across from the toilet stalls, and Jonny thinks that's kind of overkill—until he remembers that his little brother threw up all over Santa the year Jonny was seven, and that guy would definitely have appreciated a shower and a costume change immediately afterward. It's more of a private setup than Jonny's used to, but his guess is that not everyone here has grown up playing sports that require showers afterward in schools and rec centers that don't really feel like spending the money on top-of-the-line shower setups.

His locker's easy enough to find—number nineteen—and he heads straight for it to test the lock. It sticks just a little the first couple of times he gets it open, but moves easily enough after that. He places his employee handbook inside, takes another look around, nods to each Patrick when they wave or smile at him, says goodbye to Q, who's holding the door open, and heads back through the little maze of hallways until he gets to the office and a place where he can find the hidden door he came in through to get to his car. All in all, it hasn't been that bad of a day, and at least it's a few hours of pay to put towards the equipment he's saving for now that all his moving expenses are taken care of. 

He has no goddamned idea what his elf name should be, though. How the fuck is he supposed to come up with something like that?

\-- -- -- --

Apparently, elf naming is Serious Fucking Business.

It's total news to Jonny, but even he can't deny how possessive some of these people are over their choices. For his part, he _still_ has no idea which name to give when it ends up his turn to receive his uniform and nametag. But some of these people are _really_ into it.

"I look like a 'Skittles,' don't I?" Jonny hears one girl ask two others as he hangs out towards the back of the classroom, not quite stepping into the line at the front table, which is stacked high with piles of fabric in red, green, and white with the occasional faux-fur or lace or shiny gold peeking out. Underneath the table are stacks of shoe boxes, and Jonny has the sinking feeling that whatever comes out of them is going to involve curled, pointy tips at the toes. Possibly even bells.

"Yeah, I guess," another girl—the brunette who'd believed Santa's polar bears would be polite enough to keep from eating the family of penguins—says. "But I'm going to be called 'Crystal'. Or, no, 'Glitter,' that's better, because it sparkles more. No one else can claim that one."

Jonny turns away, rolling his eyes, and catches the other girl from yesterday—Amanda—looking at him, smirking once she sees Jonny's overheard the same conversation. He shakes his head in disappointment and she laughs before turning back to whomever she was talking to before. 

"So what's your elf name going be?" a voice says from behind him, and Jonny jumps a little as Patrick-the-elf-not-Patrick-Santa steps up next to him. "I think I've got mine figured out."

Jonny sighs. "Hell if I know. I'm kind of thinking I'll just ask Angie or that other woman up there to pick something for me." They're professionals. They have to have heard every possible name an elf can have, if they've done this before. He's sure they can find him something that's at least not _completely_ mortifying. 

Patrick grins. "Yeah, you seem a little too serious for this whole 'pick your elf name' magical, free-spirited crap. Honestly, you seem too serious for the whole elf thing, period. How'd you end up here, anyway?"

"Needed some spare cash until my job begins in January," he says with a shrug. "Plus something to occupy my time. Tried to get into a rec league, but those were all full by the time I moved. I can't make coffee for shit, and I hated the two months I waited tables. So, this was kind of where I landed."

"Rec league?" Patrick asks, giving him a funny look Jonny can't parse.

"Yeah, hockey. Everything within at least a forty mile radius is totally full. I figure it's probably for the best, anyway, since what I'm saving up for is new equipment. I've had my eye on this really sweet stick, but I figured it was best to wait until after I moved and got settled."

Patrick grins. "No, dude, I feel you. I'm here because I need money for new skates, and my stipend from school doesn't really stretch to cover that sort of thing."

Jonny eyes Patrick for a moment. He's small, but not super petite like some of the other figure skaters Jonny's met over the years at the rinks back home. He looks like he might have some pretty decent core strength, though, and his arms look pretty sturdy in the Henley he's wearing, so he can probably hold up a partner well enough, especially if she's as tiny as most female figure skaters. "Yeah, quality equipment isn't cheap, but it's a good investment," he agrees. He's about to ask if Patrick knows a good local place that sells hockey skates in addition to ones for ice dancing, but both of them find their focus drawn to an increasingly loud discussion near the center of the room.

"No way are you taking that name," someone—one of the guys Sharp had pointed out as being from the group of roommates—says, shaking his head. "No way. I called it."

"You didn't call shit," another guy says. Jonny thinks it's another of the roommates, but he really can't keep everyone straight. "I did this morning on the ride in."

"Like hell you did," says a third—this one is one of the guys in Jonny's group from yesterday, though fuck if Jonny can recall his name—and his voice is approaching a shout. "I called it on the way home yesterday. So screw you both, 'Buddy,' is _my_ name."

There's more arguing, and then one of the guys shoves another and the third puts the shover in a headlock as they continue to argue over who has claim to the name, even though he's several inches shorter than the guy he's got tied up. Jonny's seen less passionate fights on the ice. He thinks that if these guys were wearing gloves, they'd have ripped them off; he wouldn't be surprised if one of them hikes another's shirt up over their head.

"This is the most Canadian fight _ever_ ," Patrick whispers beside him. He looks delighted. Jonny wants to argue about that, but...okay, three guys arguing over who gets to be officially named "Buddy" is...almost painfully Canadian, and the similarities to an on-ice fight are not lost on Jonny at all. It actually makes him feel just the tiniest bit patriotic.

There's no clear winner that Jonny can see, because Q steps in and breaks it up, announcing that any further arguments on name claims will result in the name being banned from use this year, and all three guys straighten up right away, apologizing earnestly to him and each other. "Oh my God, it ends in a round of 'sorry.' It somehow got even _more_ Canadian," Patrick laughs, and Jonny turns to scowl at him.

Well, he means to scowl, but then he sees Patrick's smile. It's the widest, brightest smile Jonny's seen in a long time, complete with dimples, and it makes Jonny's stomach go kind of fluttery. It's even worse when Patrick turns his head to look at him and Jonny gets the full force of that smile, complete with sparkling blue eyes and just the tip of his tongue sticking out between his front teeth. It makes him feel a little dazed.

"May as well collect our shit and claim our new names, right?" Patrick says, and all Jonny can do is nod dumbly and step into line right behind him. He doesn't hear whatever Patrick says to Angie and the lady from HR, and when it's his turn, he just sort of blindly takes the uniform, shoes, and badge handed to him along with the instructions to go try everything on.

He shucks down to his boxer-briefs and the sleeveless undershirt he thought to wear this morning in no time, years of changing in locker rooms setting him on auto-pilot, and he tries not to grimace too much at the fluffy white pom-poms in the place of buttons along the front of the shirt. He's going to look ridiculous—but so is everyone else. It's only a month or so. He can make it work.

What he can't make work, however, are the shorts.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Jonny groans to himself. He tugs on them harder but, no matter how he tries, he can't get the damned things up over his thighs, let alone all the way up high enough to button them.

"Yeah, these aren't exactly high fashion," Patrick says from his locker, which is the next occupied one down from Jonny's.

"That's not exactly the problem," Jonny mutters, pulling the shorts down so they're loose around his calves and then trying the whole thing again.

"What, d'you have a pair with a rip or something?" Patrick asks. His head pops out of his shirt collar, blond curls everywhere, and he raises his eyebrows at Jonny before he snorts. "Dude, if you don't already, you're going to, if you keep yanking on them like that. Did they give you a size small by accident?"

Jonny checks the tag and grunts. "It says it's a large."

"You might want to go ask Angie if she's got a spare XL instead," Patrick says, slipping his own shorts on easily. "Because they're definitely not going to let you be an elf in blue jeans."

Jonny sighs. Patrick's right. He slips back into his jeans, tosses the shorts over his arm, shuts his locker, and heads back to talk to someone about the problem. 

"Defective uniform?" Angie asks as Jonny approaches, only half elf-ified. "We try to check, but sometimes we miss something, sorry." She starts to step over to another pile of clothes, but Jonny stops her before she goes for another large.

"I don't think it's defective. It's just that I'm, uh, kind of a weird size," he says, feeling his cheeks warm up. "I've had this problem before." He's had this problem tons of times, in fact. The worst was being measured for the tux he had to wear at his friend's wedding two years ago. There'd been a _lot_ of altering involved, and a whole lot of irritated clucking noises and muttering from the tailor. "I need bigger shorts."

Angie frowns. "I'm out of the next size up. But I've got some 2XLs, if you don't think you'd be swimming in those?"

"I'll give it a shot," Jonny says, thrusting the original pair of shorts at her. Thankfully, the room's almost entirely empty; everyone else is already getting into uniform. He takes the offered shorts, which are green this time instead of red. "Thanks."

The new shorts aren't any better.

Well, they're bigger, that's for sure, and they _do_ make it over Jonny's thighs. But even though the waist would obviously be fantastically loose on him, once buttoned, the cut of the shorts _still_ won't go over his ass. Rather than fight with these, Jonny sucks it up, changes yet again, and heads back to the classroom with the second pair of shorts tucked under his arm without saying anything to anyone else. There's a girl talking to Angie this time, and Jonny hears her grumble something about thanking her mother for giving her shoulders like a linebacker as she hands over a gold dress in exchange for a green and white one. 

Angie raises a single eyebrow at him when the girl steps away. "Too big, then?"

Jonny clears his throat. "Uh. Too big in the waist, but too small in the...rear section, still?"

"You’re sure you can't make them work?"

Jonny snorts. "If I somehow could manage to get them all the way up, I'd be in extreme danger of a seriously embarrassing wardrobe malfunction if I had to bend over or crouch at all, and I'm pretty sure that's discouraged, especially when we're dealing with kids."

He can see Angie try to stifle a laugh at that and he appreciates her professionalism. "Okay, well, we have one other alternative costuming option for someone your height, but I don't think you're going to like it much."

Jonny sighs and wishes it weren't most likely too late to find another seasonal job that'll pay a cent over minimum wage. "If it makes me an elf, it makes me an elf. I'll deal with it."

"Oooo-kay," she says, shrugging. Like Jonny has a choice here. "Total costume switch, then. Try these on. If they work, you can bring me the rest of your original costume when you leave for the day. If they don't, well, we'll scour the warehouse tonight for something that'll work for you tomorrow." She takes the second set of shorts from him and starts gathering things from other piles, finally handing Jonny another full outfit. "Here you go. Hurry up, though—we need you all back here in ten minutes."

Jonny's halfway through the locker room door before he realizes there are no pants in the outfit Angie's handed him. And as he gets dressed, he realizes why.

It's just a tunic, tights, and a belt. The tunic comes to his mid-thigh in the front, but it just barely covers his ass. Still, it'll work. It's not _too_ bad.

At least, that's what he thinks until someone behind him wolf-whistles as Jonny reaches for his shoes.

"Nice leggings," Sharp says, coming up to stand beside Jonny. "Really cute with the mini-dress."

"They're not leggings," Jonny grits out, though "tights" isn't exactly any better. "And it's a tunic, not a dress."

"You say that, but my wife has this dress, leggings, belt, and boots combo that's a goddamn piece of art, and they're alarmingly similar."

Jonny mutters something that would probably get him written up if Q was within hearing distance, but it's lost when he bends down again and someone else says something like "well, you're right about the 'piece of art' thing, anyway, because are you seeing that ass? That's some serious sculpting, right there."

Jonny feels his face flame at the same time he wishes he'd paid attention to who was talking, because he thinks that _might_ have been the other Patrick. 

"Holy shit," someone else says, laughing in a way that sounds genuinely startled, and Jonny stands up to see a guy he doesn't know at all staring at him with wide eyes. "That puts my girlfriend's giant ass to shame!"

"Should you be calling your girlfriend's ass big?" a fourth guy asks, sounding doubtful. It's a younger guy Jonny doesn't know, but he looks like he's barely out of high school. "That's not exactly respectful towards your lady."

The guy who laughed just snorts and shakes his head. "Nah, man, she's _proud_ of her giant ass. It's her favorite thing about herself, and she flaunts it. With leggings kinda like that, actually," he says, gesturing at Jonny, who's trying really hard to ignore everyone. "But dude, whatever gym routine you do, you've gotta share that with me before Christmas, seriously. Because whoever said it earlier was right, that's some impressive muscle tone—not that I'm hitting on you _at all,_ because I don't swing that way, no matter what kind of muscles you've got. I just need to know how to get results like that. You do protein shakes and shit, too? Follow one of those special diets?"

"Sort of," Jonny mutters, feeling slightly less murderous now that he can tell the guy addressing him looks honestly impressed and curious. 

"Teach me your ways, man, seriously. I'll stock up at the GNC after we get our first checks."

There are no more comments on Jonny's ass—thank fucking God—because Q pops his head in and tells everyone to hop to it and get back to the classroom for their final inspection and last bit of instruction before they're turned loose for the day. "And be wearing your nametags!" he barks, ducking back out of the room.

There's a lot of eye-rolling at the last instruction, a bit of gloating from whichever of the roommates ended up snagging "Buddy" for the season, and someone else mutters "goodbye, dignity" as they affix their nametag to their chest. Patrick pins his on his left suspender, then stoops down and picks another badge off the floor. "You dropped yours," he says, handing it to Jonny with a smile. His mouth quirks higher on one end as he gets a look at it. "Twinkle Toes?"

"Huh?"

"Your name," Patrick says, nodding at the piece of plastic. He's still smiling right at Jonny, and it's really fucking with Jonny's ability to stay angry about anything.

Jonny looks down at the tag in his hand, realizing that neither Angie nor the other woman from HR had ever asked for his name when they'd handed him his things. And sure enough, there in black script with little holly berries and leaves on either side is his new name for the next several weeks: _Twinkle Toes._

"Goddamn it, Sharp!" Jonny huffs, because that's the only person who can possibly be responsible. He'd made a big deal about Jonny's last name yesterday _and_ he's friendly with the HR ladies. 

A hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes, and Jonny breathes deeply so he doesn't deck Santa in his handsome, apologetic face. "Sorry, man, I couldn't help it. I honestly didn't think Carol would write it down. I'll tell her I was just messing around, and you can pick whatever else you were going to go with. I just thought that with your last name and all, and the fact that you look sort of like the most deadly-serious elf to ever exist, you needed something extra whimsical, y'know?"

Jonny lets out a deep breath very slowly through his nose. It's not like he hasn't been pranked by teammates and that sort of shit before. Hell, even the crack about his facial expression isn't one original to Sharp. "Fair enough," he says, and Sharp looks truly surprised for a moment before regaining his composure. "Honestly, it's probably the least humiliating bit of the last twenty minutes. But I'll get you back by Christmas, you can count on it."

Sharp laughs, looking incredibly pleased. "Twinkle Toes, I welcome you to try. C'mon, let's get out of here before Q has to come searching." He jostles Jonny and Patrick forward, a hand on each of their shoulders. The other employees who have remained in the locker room follow right along after them, and Jonny tries to tell himself the worst of everything is already passed, especially since he can see that there are at least a couple of other guys stuck wearing tights and tunics, too. 

It's a little easier to believe when Patrick knocks his shoulder companionably against Jonny's arm as they take seats in the classroom again, grinning when Jonny looks over and sees Patrick's new name—Kandy Kane—and splutters laughter that turns into a small coughing fit that prompts Patrick to pound him on the back until it stops.

\-- -- -- --

All in all, it's kind of boring being an elf.

Jonny's worked all four days Santa's Village has been open, assigned to the opening shift for all of them. They've had a few kids take pictures with Santa—or, well, the Santas, since Sharp and a guy Sharp calls Hoss have switched off those shifts so far—but mostly it's been a lot of standing around, trying to look merry while being bored stupid. 

The classroom Winter Wonderland used for training and orientation has been converted to a sort-of lounge/cafeteria spot for the staff, and Jonny discovered on the first day of actual work how important that luxury is. Others, however, are still learning that lesson on their own.

"So if anyone hasn't figured it out yet," one of the girls calls out, storming into the room with a Styrofoam container from the Chinese place in the mall's smaller satellite food court clutched in her hand like a hard-won prize, "it is _not_ worth it to hike across the mall to the other food court on your lunch break. Especially not with the way all these bells attract looks from shoppers and other mall employees. If one more old guy from the appliance place calls me 'Muffin,' there's gonna be a hell of an interesting assault report in the mall security blotter."

"Isn't that your name?" one of the guys—Biscuit, Jonny thinks—asks her, looking up from the phone he and Donut are messing around with at the table nearest the door.

"Well, yeah, but I'm _really_ regretting that choice now," she says, flopping into a chair across from the two of them. "Also, I don't even think some of them know that."

"The main food court's not much better," Waffles commiserates from his spot against the wall. "I spent twenty minutes getting harassed by the only kid in the place yesterday, because he wanted to know every single detail about what Santa's like." He holds up his empty Cliff Bar wrapper and open can of Rock Star. "So now I'm bringing my own stuff from home. Breakfast of champions, right here."

"It's almost two," Patrick says, materializing from somewhere near the refrigerator. He plops down across from Jonny. "That's more lunch than breakfast, isn't it?"

"Eh, same thing," Waffles says, knocking back the last of his drink. "All right, here we go. Hopefully, there will be something to do out there." He tosses a salute to the room and saunters out the door, and Patrick shakes his head.

"If he needs an energy drink at two in the afternoon on a Thursday, I'm curious how he's going to cope when we actually have to deal with more than a half-dozen kids in a day," he says, opening a small plastic bottle and taking a swig. "I don't even think he's worked any of the later shifts, when there've actually been a few of them."

"You've had shifts already, too?" Jonny asks, picking at the remaining half of his beef and rice bowl. He hasn't seen Patrick since their second day of training on Sunday.

"Yeah, a few hours in the evening the last couple of days," Patrick says, shrugging one shoulder. "And this afternoon. After I'm done at school, y'know? Why, have you been stuck with mornings?"

"Yeah, so far."

Patrick nods. "Should be interesting next week, though. Q looks pretty grim when he mentions it. I mean, he normally looks that way, but Angie looks just as serious, and that's a little more worrisome. Apparently there's always a few elves who can't hack it and turn in their jingle bells by the end of Black Friday."

"Who said that?"

"Sharp."

"You talk with him?"

Patrick looks at him funny. "Well, yeah, I was the Camera Elf last night and Santa's Gatekeeper the night before, and those were his Santa shifts. I like him. He's funny."

Jonny's not entirely sure about that, but he'll let Patrick have that one. He's about to say something bland like "cool" or "yeah" in response, only he finally notices what it is Patrick's been drinking. It's not a protein shake, like Jonny had thought at first, or even some iced coffee drink, which would have been a safer assumption. 

It's so much worse.

"Are you seriously drinking eggnog right now?" Jonny asks instead, unable to keep his eyebrows from doing the judging thing he's been told they do a lot. 

Patrick grins. "Of course."

"It's not even Thanksgiving yet."

"Yeah, but it _is_ thirty degrees outside right now," he points out, and he's at least correct about that. "Close enough to winter for me." He lifts the bottle towards Jonny. "Want some?"

"Pass," Jonny says, leaning away from it. He most definitely does _not_ want some.

"Don't tell me you're anti-nog, man. Come on, I'll even let you have my other bottle, if it's just that you don't want to risk backwash or something." He starts to get up and Jonny shakes his head until he stops and sits back down.

"No, it's not that. I mean, thanks and all. But I'm lactose intolerant."

Patrick tsks sadly. "That sucks for you, man. You're missing out." He looks up at the clock on the wall and makes a noise around his mouthful before swallowing. "Shit, time to go," he says, standing up and finishing off the bottle in his hand. Jonny watches his throat work as he swallows down the last half of his drink and tries to tell himself that's not at all hot, because it's fucking _eggnog_ , which Jonny didn't even really like _before_ he stopped consuming dairy products. 

It _is_ kind of hot, however, when Patrick licks his lips and tongues at the corner of his mouth to catch the last drops of the drink, even though Jonny can't see a trace of it there. 

"Coming?" Patrick asks, and Jonny blinks for a second before he realizes Patrick's asking if he's headed back to work so they can head out to the Village together. 

"Yeah." He closes up his dish and sticks it back in the fridge to grab again after his shift. "You're on now?"

"Yup. Gatekeeper. You?"

"Cameras." It's just him and Hoss—Jonny's not even sure if that's a weird nickname or an actual name, because the Santas don't wear nametags; the guy's kind of quiet and hasn't said much that Jonny's heard, and Jonny hasn't worked a position close to him yet—for the next few hours, now that Jonny's put in his time as Welcome Elf for the morning. Not that there was much of anyone to really welcome.

"Nice."

The afternoon isn't much busier than the morning was and, by the time four-thirty hits, Jonny's only photographed two children sitting on Santa's lap, and one of them had been screaming and crying. "It's okay," the kid's mother had assured Jonny and Hoss. "We know Jake's a little apprehensive about Santa right now. That's why we're starting early, so we can do this a couple dozen more times before Christmas and get him used to the idea until we've got a good enough picture to put on our wall and send to the grandparents. We'll be back this weekend!"

"Uh. Right," Jonny had replied, unsure how the hell to respond to that. She'd even waved off the small stocking-shaped thumb drive with her photos he'd tried to give her when she paid for the base session. "Have a nice day? I mean, Merry Christmas." He raises his eyebrows at Hoss after she and her kid are gone, wondering if there's a lot of this sort of thing. Hoss just shrugs.

Something bounces softly off the back of Jonny's head as he's archiving the photos and marking the order as declined, ready to delete the three image files from the thumb drive, and he snaps his head up to see what the hell hit him. He doesn't see anything else coming at him and there's nothing immediately above him, and it takes him a moment to find the object amongst the fake snow drift just past the register. 

"Hit me, I'm open!" Jonny hears Patrick call out as he crouches down to grab the offending item off the floor. He looks back up just in time to see Patrick step out from his assigned spot, holding his arms out as he opens his mouth obscenely wide. He stretches his neck up to catch something in his mouth, and Jonny's treated to the sight of Patrick's tongue making another appearance after he's chewed and swallowed his prize, licking his lips and grinning triumphantly. 

"Twinkle Toes! Catch!" someone else shouts, and Jonny's still too distracted by the thought of Patrick's mouth to react in time, mumbling a dazed "huh?" and turning towards the voice just as something soft pelts him in the nose. He flinches at the unexpected impact even though it was entirely painless and looks down at the thing now sitting at his feet.

Jonny thought _he_ was bored, but apparently someone else is bored enough to have smuggled a marshmallow gun into Santa's Village. 

"Dude, you're wasting them!" Jinxy says with total disappointment in his voice. "Be ready next time!"

Jonny turns to Hoss with a slight flailing of his arms, because the guy's got a few years on the rest of them and surely has to be a solid voice of reason, but all Hoss does is grin underneath his fake beard and turn towards Jinxy. "Hit me!" Jinxy shoots the next marshmallow at Hoss's raised hand and it's caught easily, disappearing straight into Hoss's mouth a second later.

Jonny sighs. Fuck it. He's not really big on this much pure sugar, but a few won't kill him, and he can play for the sake of team bonding. "Alright, let's have it," he calls, glancing around to make sure Angie or Q isn't lurking around first. 

"Okay, show me what you've got!" Jinxy says, taking aim at Jonny again, and Jonny surprises everyone—including himself—by catching the marshmallow easily in his mouth. By the entrance to Santa's Cottage, Patrick applauds.

Jonny tries not to feel a little smug and fails at it. "The rest of them are all you guys," he says around the mouthful of sugar and gelatin, waving Jinxy off when he starts to reload. "These things are a lot better in drinks and desserts than on their own."

"Well, yeah, of course," Patrick says, laughing when the next shot takes him unawares and hits him in the chin. He still manages to snag it before it falls to the ground, popping it into his mouth and making an inappropriately pleased noise that has Jonny thinking about something other than marshmallows. And that is a dangerous fucking path to let his mind wander down, especially since the only coverage he has is a thin tunic and a layer of thick, spandex-like material that would leave little to the imagination should anything, uh, _arise._ "Besides, you don't want to eat too many and ruin how well those tights fit, right?"

"Shut up, Patrick," Jonny mutters, feeling his face heat a little.

"'Shut up, Kandy Kane,' you mean," Patrick says, mock-serious about the policy of only using their elf names while they're in costume. "Seriously, though, man, think of those of us who look at that ass every day. Keep it high-quality, all right?" 

"Whatever," Jonny mumbles as Patrick turns to greet a mother and her little girl as they come down the last bit of the path. He winks at Jonny before greeting the girl like she's the most important guest Santa's ever going to have. 

He doesn't fail to notice that Patrick hadn't said those of them who "had to" look—just that he _does_ look.

\-- -- -- --

Sometime around hour six of his Black Friday shift, Jonny violently regrets spending the last week and a half wishing Santa's Village could be busier. He's been kicking himself so hard mentally that he won't be all that surprised to find real bruises on his ass when he looks in the mirror tonight.

Assuming he lives that long.

"You think Waffles has any spare energy drinks?" Daisy—Amanda—groans as she trudges back to the entrance of Santa's Village after chasing some kid away from trying to climb on top of the toy train for the fourth time in twelve minutes.

Jonny snorts. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a few stashed behind some of these snowbanks, but I think it's probably a 'pry it from his cold, dead hands' situation in regards to giving it up, y'know?"

Amanda lets her head thunk against Jonny's shoulder, and he pats her back twice in a big-brotherly way. They've developed a nice rapport over the last couple of weeks. "At least it's almost my break time, right?" she asks just before Q catches Jonny's eye from halfway across the plaza and makes a significant gesture in their direction that has both of them jumping apart and standing up straight, large Christmas-cheer-filled smiles stretched across both their faces for the visitors to Santa's Village. He still looks kind of murderous, even if he is wearing elf ears and a pointy hat. The message is clear: elves are never exhausted or tired of dealing with small children. "Remind me to tell Santa that my brother Phil deserves a giant lump of coal this Christmas for talking me into taking this job, knowing full-well what it was like after doing it for all four years he was in college," Amanda mutters through her smile.

Laughing, Jonny stoops down to pick up an empty candy cane wrapper someone's left amongst the cheerful mitten-wearing squirrels who are holding hands along this part of the path. "Talk to Sharp. He could probably hook you up." If there's anyone who might be able to make that happen—and take great pleasure in doing so—it's him. He's mysteriously kind of grown on Jonny. 

Jonny's still paying him back for the naming thing, though. He's not sure how, but it's going to happen. He makes good on his word.

"Twinkle Toes, it's lunch time," Angie says, coming up behind him and startling the shit out of him so badly that he jumps and the pre-schooler approaching the entrance gate laughs at him. "Take your thirty. I'm covering you while you're gone. Daisy, you've got your fifteen-minute break in twenty. Ruby'll be over to replace you as soon as she's back from her lunch. And there's about five pots of coffee in the break room, courtesy of the manager of the Starbucks upstairs, if either of you needs the caffeine."

"Sweet merciful Jesus, yes," Amanda breathes, and Angie laughs as she shoos Jonny away to take his lunch. 

The break room has eight or nine people in it, half of them standing around the paper boxes of coffee and the makeshift coffee bar that's been set up with cups, sugars, creamers, and the like. Jonny skips the crowd and heads for the fridge instead, grabbing his container of roast chicken and golden beet salad and the bottle of juice he'd bought yesterday on the way home. He's halfway through inhaling the salad when Patrick drops heavily into the chair across from him, cracking open another bottle of eggnog and taking a large swig.

"Are you seriously still drinking that crap?" Jonny asks, forkful of food halfway to his mouth. "How do you not gain weight? It's all sugar and fat."

Patrick raises an eyebrow. "Between killing myself at school, going to the gym, and spending any free time I can find on the ice, I'm fine." He squints at Jonny's meal. "What the hell is _that_?" he asks, narrowing his focus to the bottle of juice. "I mean, I know it's juice or something, but it's green. What the hell's in it?"

Jonny shrugs. "Kale, celery, cucumber, spinach, ginger, lemon. I think maybe parsley. It's from the raw foods place a few blocks from my apartment. It's good for energy." It also tastes pretty good. "You want to try it?"

"...Nah, I'll stick with mine, thanks," Patrick says, looking seriously skeptical. "You enjoy, though."

Jonny shrugs. He won't be the one regretting it when his blood sugar crashes later.

"All right, guys, I come bearing gifts!" someone calls out from the doorway. Jonny turns to look and sees one of the youngest girls stepping through the doorway, holding a large Tupperware container in her hands. Jonny thinks her name's Tilly, but all he really knows about her is that she's eighteen and _definitely_ one of those people who loves absolutely everything about Christmas. She's flanked by Snowball and Blossom, who are trailing after her like hopeful puppies. "My mom thought we could all use a pick-me-up and sent me to work with some homemade goodies! Come and get 'em!"

There's a small rush towards Tilly and her container, Patrick amongst the crowd, and Jonny hears Tilly laugh as someone asks if her mom might be willing to adopt a twenty-two-year-old son for Christmas. After a moment, Patrick comes back, holding a cookie out to Jonny as he takes a bite out of the one in his other hand. "Here. Eat this."

Jonny grimaces. "No thanks."

"Jonny, man. You're disgracing the name of 'elf', eating salads and shit, drinking green stuff from the local raw juice bar instead of taking the opportunity to suck on candy canes and eat all the cookies you can." He barks laughter suddenly, and Jonny raises his eyebrows in question. "Dude! You're like the elf who wanted to be a dentist! You know, in that old Claymation Rudolph special?"

"I am not!" Jonny says with a huff. "I just can't eat gluten—or, well, wheat, anyway. It makes me legitimately sick."

Patrick shakes his head, but he's still grinning at the thought of Jonny as an anti-elf or whatever. "All right, fine. Still, what kind of elf can't drink eggnog and hot chocolate with whipped cream or eat Christmas cookies?"

"This one, apparently," Jonny mutters, going back to his salad. 

"Tell me you at least do maple syrup, like Buddy does in _Elf_ , come on. You're Canadian, you _have_ to, right?"

Jonny sighs. "I don't put it on spaghetti—"

"Well, yeah," Patrick interrupts. "Because that's made of wheat."

"—but yes, I have been known to use maple syrup. Does that make you and your stereotypes any happier?"

"Absolutely," Patrick says, beaming at him.

"Good, glad to help," Jonny says dryly, though he's fighting a smile. "Now eat your cookie."

Patrick has to leave to clock in for the beginning of his shift before Jonny's lunch is over, and Jonny doesn't see him at all when he steps through the boundaries of Santa's Village, mentally pep-talking himself into getting through the last few hours of his shift. Q finds Jonny before he reaches Angie, and Jonny still can't get over how gruff of an elf the man makes. He's not sure if it's more the mustache or the eyebrows that does it, but it's an unmistakable effect. "Toes!" he shouts, gesturing Jonny over, and Jonny wonders if Q finds 'Twinkle Toes' too ridiculous to say. "How comfortable are you with being Santa's Gatekeeper?"

"Uh," Jonny says, trying not to look guilty at all. "Good, I think." There'd been one kid he'd made cry last week, completely by accident, but the kid's mom had been quick to reassure Jonny it was just because he'd been a little overstimulated all day and probably would have burst into tears for _anyone_ other than Santa talking to him. 

That still hadn't kept Waffles from laughing at him and mimicking Jonny's half-desperate "you're okay, bud" as he'd tried to talk the kid down so Gingerbread could actually get some useable photos with Santa.

"You think you are, or you are?"

"I am."

"Good. Head there for your last three hours. Tinsel's out."

"Huh?"

"Handed in his pointy ears ten minutes ago. You're in. Think you can handle it?"

"Yeah, of course." 

"Good man. Carol's back there right now. Let her know you've got it till four-thirty."

It takes Jonny a couple of minutes to pick his way through the families standing in line to see Santa, and Carol looks happy enough to be able to retreat back to the office or wherever else she works most days, leaning forward to whisper to Jonny that she hit 'too told to wear pointy shoes all day' about forty years ago as she pats him on the shoulder and moves out of his new spot. She also says something about seeing him again soon that Jonny doesn't understand until almost an hour later, when she shows back up with Angie. Angie's still an elf, but Carol's now Mrs. Claus, a look that suits her perfectly.

And despite the numerous signs stating that cell phones and personal cameras aren't allowed within Santa's Village, Angie's got her phone out.

"Say 'candy!'" she calls out to Jonny just as he reaches down to let a little girl and her parents through the gate. He looks back up to see a flash go off in front of his eyes, lightly searing his retinas. At his surprised "wha?", Angie giggles. "Picture time, Twinkle Toes. We need some images for our website, and the mall management wants to send a few out on their social media accounts." 

Suddenly, any elves not assigned to a specific position and left to patrol their way through the village to keep their visitors in line just up and disappear from the immediate area.

"Some of these kids are _quick_ ," Carol says with a snort. She's not wrong. Jonny's not even sure where the hell a couple of them _went_. If there was ever any evidence of magic in Santa's Village, that might've been it. "Well, we've got you, so smile and say 'candy' before we leave find someone else to catch. We need at least forty-five usable images today. Just smile nicely. I'm hoping I don't have to tell you, but...no duck face, got it?"

"Okay," Jonny says, knowing he doesn't really have any leverage here. He stands up straight and smiles like they want, hoping the two flashes from Angie's phone are enough. "That okay?"

Angie looks at her phone and bursts out laughing. "I don't mean this to be mean, but...those aren't exactly photos we can use, Twinkle Toes."

"Lemme see," a voice says from behind Angie's shoulder, and Patrick's head pops into view. He shoots Jonny a grin as Angie holds up her phone so he can see the screen, and then he chokes on a laugh. "Dude. Hold up. Let me show you how it's done." He looks around, then waves an arm off to the far side of the path as Jonny lets the next mother and her baby in to see Santa. "Daisy! Get Holly and Gingerbread over here!"

They must not have any idea what Angie and Carol are up to, because Amanda wanders up first, looking happy and caffeinated, Holly and Gingerbread following just a few steps behind. "What's up, Kandy Kane?" Amanda asks, coming up to stand with the others in front of Jonny.

"It's time to step up and take one for the team. Angie and Carol need some decent photos, or they're gonna be stuck with the ones Twinkle Toes posed for. Take a look."

Amanda leans over and laughs just like Patrick had. "Okay, I see your point." She shakes her head at Jonny. "You're a good-looking elf, but you look like someone goosed you in that first one, and in the second, you look kinda...uh, blocked up," she says, looking shiftily at the kids nearby as if she's unsure whether or not using the term 'constipated' to refer to your coworker's facial expression is something that can get you written up. 

"They can't be that bad," Jonny says, frowning. And then Angie tilts her phone his direction and he winces. Yeah, they definitely can.

Angie takes a couple of individual shots of Patrick and each of the three people he's managed to lure over here, even though Gingerbread murmurs something about maybe being needed to go translate something into Russian right now instead before Patrick snags him by the sleeve to keep him in place. When those are done, Angie takes a photo of Patrick and Gingerbread standing together talking to a little boy before they let him and his older sister through to Santa. Amanda poses for a few pictures with Holly, Holly turns around and takes one where it looks like she's giving Gingerbread a candy cane, and Amanda startles the hell out of Jonny by laughingly pretending to kiss him on the cheek while he freezes in his surprise as Angie clicks the shutter of her phone's camera.

"Okay, one more," Patrick says, and then he's slinging his arm around Jonny's neck in a way that makes Jonny's cheeks heat up that Amanda's play-kiss didn't. 

"See, now _there's_ the smile we were looking for in the first place! Apparently Twinkle Toes just needs a warm-up period in front of the camera," Angie says, looking relieved. "Come on, Carol. I don't think anyone by the train station or the entrance gate knows we've got a camera yet. Let's go ambush some more elves doing elf things. At the very least, we should be able to get a few kids smiling at the polar bears. And Marshmallow's over there with the penguins—he's been pretty good at warming families up for Santa, according to Sharp, so we can always ask him to get in on it." She looks at Jonny and the others. "Thanks, guys. At least a couple of these should be up on our website tonight and posted the other places by the end of the weekend."

"Wait, posted?" Holly asks as Angie and Carol walk away. "Tell me these aren't going up somewhere on Facebook or something."

"Yeah, that's the idea," Jonny says, glad someone else looks as horrified as he'd felt as first. His face still feels kind of warm, but it's not from embarrassment at having his picture taken. He's pretty sure it's because Patrick's arm is still around his shoulders.

He likes it there. Even if Gingerbread _is_ giving them a funny look as he wanders back in the direction of the giant Christmas tree (which reaches up to a point somewhere between the second and third floor).

"Oh, applesauce," Holly mutters. "My roommate's never going to let me live those down. They're going to be all over the residence hall before finals." 

Amanda laughs. "Hey, it's not the end of the world. Come with me over to the Peppermint Pond. We'll help lure some of the others over to Angie." She flicks one of the tiny bells around Holly's collar. "And I'll help you plot either interference or revenge on your roommate. I grew up with older brothers. I've picked up a thing or two." 

"Deal," Holly says, looking considerably less distressed. She hooks her elbow with Amanda's. "Let's go." They walk off, and the last thing Jonny hears Holly say is something about Amanda also helping her figure out how to get Gingerbread to ask her out before Christmas. 

"Aw, did you hear that?" Patrick asks, grinning widely. "Holly's into our little Gingerbread Man. They'd be cute together, don't you think? Maybe we should help set them up, too. Take them under our wings or whatever. He's told me she's pretty, y'know." 

"We're elves, not Cupid," Jonny says, raising his eyebrows.

Patrick laughs at him and removes his arm from around Jonny's shoulders so he can let another little kid in through the gate when the small hidden light turns from red to green. He gives Jonny's arm a light punch. "Right. Still, who says elves can't find love? No rule against that, right?"

Jonny clears his throat against a sudden tickle. He should drink more water to keep hydrated. "Right."

Patrick smiles at him again, dimples at full-strength, and Jonny tries not to think about how nice it is that there's no such rule anywhere that he knows about.

\-- -- -- --

Most of them make it through Black Friday and the rest of that weekend at least relatively intact, much to Jonny's relief.

Glitter's got a small tear in the cartilage of one ear after letting a toddler get too close to her sparkliest pair of earrings, and Donut's now missing a tooth, lost to a heavy rubber shark when some kid's temper went nuclear and toys were thrown as a part of that sugar-fueled fit—so they're definitely not all _completely_ intact. 

There was a rumor in the locker room the next day that Biscuit's got the missing tooth in some locket-like pendant on a chain around his neck, but Jonny thinks that's just a rumor Sharp's started. And if it's not, he really doesn't want to know.

They've also lost five elves in that same three-day period, only two of whom Jonny could have identified in a lineup—Tinsel and Bella—but there's still a staff of about forty, including Angie, Carol, Q, and the four Santas. And it feels like they've finally hit some sort of rhythm now that the first major hurdle has been cleared.

Jonny's enjoying listening to Gingerbread patiently trying to teach Patrick how to say different Christmas-related phrases in Russian—or maybe curse words he's pretending are Christmas phrases, Jonny wouldn't know the difference if his life depended upon it—while Sharp laughs and gives Patrick a hard time about some of the more obvious pronunciation flubs in the occasional periods between visitors. When Gingerbread decides it's time to give the lessons a chance to soak in (or just can't take anymore of Patrick butchering his native language, which seems more likely to Jonny), Patrick has Holly take his position at the register behind where Gingerbread's manning the camera and computer and motions for Jonny to follow him, saying something about checking some of the displays for trash and items to take to the mall's lost-and-found.

They walk slowly around the whole village, straightening some of the figures that have been knocked into or climbed on or otherwise fucked with while Patrick rambles about the professor he's a TA for, in between greeting kids and their families and handing out the occasional mini candy cane to the kids who are exceptionally polite or hide behind their parents' legs when Jonny says hello and then smile shyly when Patrick waves at them.

Patrick's really good with kids in a natural, easy way Jonny just doesn't have. "You know, I kind of hoped this job would help me figure out how to be a little better with children, but I don't think it's working," he says with a grimace as another kid burrows into her mother's arms when Jonny waves at her. Being rejected by small children is especially hard on the ego.

"Why would you even worry about that?" Patrick asks. "You're not gonna be a dad in a few months or anything, are you?"

Jonny snorts. "Not hardly." That's Sharp's thing. Jonny met Sharp's _very_ pregnant wife once when they'd been shopping during one of Jonny's morning elf shifts, and he really wishes his introduction to Mrs. Sharp hadn't been while he was wearing pointy ears, jingling bells, and tights, but she'd politely ignored the outfit and cheerfully told Sharp to stuff it when he'd said something snarky about it on his own. It was interesting to see Sharp play the role of doting husband, and when they'd left to go pick out a changing table to go with the crib they'd just received as a gift, Jonny'd been struck with the realization that Sharp was not only someone Jonny wouldn't mind getting to know outside of work, but also that his wife might actually be the bigger, more clever smartass between the two. They'd seemed to be so comfortable with each other and their impending new addition, and Jonny knows he's light years from being at a place like that in his life, if he ever ends up there at all. "I meant that it wouldn't hurt me professionally or anything."

"What is it you actually do?" Patrick asks, stooping to pick up a small red fire engine hidden under the leaves of a poinsettia plant. "Didn't you say something about non-profit work or something like that?"

Jonny nods. "I'm part of one that's new to Chicago, or will be once the office opens in January. We fund after-school programs for kids—mostly outdoor stuff, like mini hiking trips and other physical activities, and stuff like urban agriculture."

"Dude, that's really cool. And it sounds a lot more interesting than the stuff I've been babbling at you about."

"No, applied statistics is cool," Jonny insists, and Patrick laughs at him.

"I think so, yeah, but virtually no one outside the field shares that view. Most people don't even realize it's a thing, let alone a thing I'd choose to pursue to the point where I'm a Masters candidate. And trust me, no one outside of the field or my immediate family _ever_ asks me about my thesis."

"What is your thesis?" Jonny asks, fully prepared to hear a whole lot of words and concepts that he's totally unable to comprehend. He's determined to at least try to appear interested anyway, because it's pretty clear Patrick does actually like applied statistics for some godawful reason. 

Patrick rolls his eyes. "In the most basic terms, it involves predictive modeling. I want to bring up the NHL advanced stats categories to the level of the stuff used by the MLB and other leagues. Especially the goalie stuff, because the current methods and metrics are _abysmal_ from a stats point of view." His looks sideways at Jonny and his eyebrows knit together. "Dude. Why are you looking at me like that? I told you I know no one else cares about this sort of thing."

"Your Masters thesis deals with NHL stats?"

"Huh, you were listening. Yeah. Why?"

"You're into hockey?"

This time, Patrick looks at Jonny like he's a little slow. "Yeah. Didn't I tell you I was saving for a new pair of skates?"

"Well, yeah, but I thought you meant like _ice dancing_ skates," Jonny admits sheepishly. "I'd noticed you weren't built as narrowly as some of the other figure skaters I've known, but I hadn't considered you might play hockey, sorry."

Patrick looks offended for a moment but then he rolls his eyes and shoves at Jonny playfully. "Just because I'm not some giant yeti doesn't mean I couldn't skate circles around you or regularly stick-handle twice as well as you on your best day, you know." He laughs. "You might be surprised at what I could teach _you._ You're not automatically better just because you're Canadian, you freak."

Jonny scoffs. "Yeah, I'd like to see you prove it sometime," he says loftily. "Maybe you can skate as hard as you can run your mouth and maybe you can't—" he cuts himself off as they walk around the corner of a false building designed to look like a little gingerbread house. There's a small kid and his mother admiring the polar bears around Peppermint Pond, and as soon as they get a half-dozen steps past the cottage, the kid switches his focus to Jonny and Patrick.

And does some _serious_ staring at Jonny.

He's starting to feel sort of self-conscious, wondering if Patrick's stuck something stupid to the front of his bright green cap when they were goofing around a moment ago, when the little kid turns to his mother and signs something at her, breaking into a giant smile. Jonny smiles back at him when he turns around, slowly signing one of the two ASL greetings they'd all been taught in orientation, speaking along as clearly as he can as he does: "Hello! Are you looking forward to meeting Santa Claus?"

The little boy nods eagerly, and his mother looks surprised that someone's made the effort to sign to her child in the first place. "He says he's been very good all week so he could come," she says, translating his next set of signs when Jonny's expression conveys he has no idea what's just been said, signing along as she does so. "He's entirely mute, but he also can read lips a lot of the time, if you're not comfortable signing." She makes a considering face. "Is Santa's beard trimmed, or do you think he—?" She cuts off the question when her son tugs at the hem of her sweater to refocus her attention on him, then flicks her eyes to Jonny when the little boy moves to stand directly in front of him, his eyes wide and earnest. He signs something else quickly, and this time his mother doesn't translate it immediately. Instead, her eyes widen drastically and she gasps, hands coming up to her mouth. She looks absolutely _mortified_. 

On Jonny's left, Patrick immediately cracks the fuck up. The little boy grins briefly at Patrick, mostly polite, but it's still Jonny's face he's staring at, as if he's waiting for an answer that Jonny doesn't know how to give. Before he can apologize for not understanding, Patrick chokes back his laughter and crouches down so he's at the little boy's height. He signs back rapidly, a giant grin stretched across his face; when he's done, the little boy looks at Jonny in something like awe and then signs something simple to Patrick. Patrick responds silently again, still smiling hugely, then turns to the mother and signs something different that makes her look significantly less horrified and even gets her to chuckle a little and smile awkwardly at Jonny, even though she's still bright red. Patrick waves at the boy and Jonny follows his lead before Patrick tugs him by the arm to a spot back behind the false cottage where they're out of sight of anyone who might be anywhere along any of the path that leads from the entrance to the photography setup.

As soon as they're hidden again, Patrick loses it, laughing so hard he's doubled over and gasping for air as Jonny stands there, waiting for some sort of explanation of what the fuck just happened. "Okay," Jonny says, perplexed, as soon as Patrick has himself under control. "What was that all about? What the hell did that kid say? What did _you_ say?"

"He just said that you have a really, really big forehead," Patrick says, sounding a little wheezy. 

Well, now Jonny has some idea why the mother looked so mortified, at least. "And what did you say?" He'd bet his entire elf-based income on it not being a lecture about tact, especially given that the kid was, at most, six years old.

"I said that the reason your forehead's so big is because that's where you store all the information Santa needs about all the very best presents. And that it makes you one of Santa's most important and favorite elves."

"...I have no idea how to respond to any of that," Jonny says after a moment, because he really doesn't. He self-consciously runs his fingertips across his forehead. "And it's not _that_ big, okay?"

Patrick makes a noise that's half giggle and half snort. "Aw, don't be offended. I happen to like your forehead," he says, looking up at it like someone might examine a bit of artwork for appraisal. "Here, let me adjust your hat. It'll help. The way you have it sit makes it look, just...yeah." He lifts his hand up near Jonny's cap and hesitates, biting at his lower lip in a way that makes Jonny's breath catch a little. "Can I?"

Jonny's "yeah," is just a little delayed, but Patrick doesn't comment on it if he notices. 

"Here, if you just let it sit a little farther forward, and turn it so the thing hangs here instead of straight back," Patrick murmurs as he adjusts the cap carefully, "then it's a lot more flattering of a look for you." He tilts his head, admiring his handiwork, and nods slightly. "Yeah. There we go. Much better." Patrick slides his hand away and the heel of his hand brushes over the spot where the elf-ear prosthetic meets Jonny's actual ear as his fingertips graze the back of Jonny's neck so gently that it might be nothing more than an accident. He grins softly at Jonny, looking up at him through his thick eyelashes. "That okay?"

"Yeah," Jonny repeats, and this time his breath is a little ragged. "Definitely." He has the insane urge to reach out and run his fingers through Patrick's curls, letting them card through the ones that peek out from underneath his cap and curl at the nape of his neck. "Thanks."

"Any time," Patrick murmurs, still staring at Jonny in a way that makes him feel kind of warm and sweaty. He jolts suddenly. "Oh, crap. Sharp's wearing that beard, I forgot to tell that lady—" He huffs and makes a face. "I'd kind of like to run Sharpy through a better way to—"

"Just go, Patrick," Jonny snorts, shaking his head. "I'm supposed to be off in less than five minutes anyway. Hurry up, or they'll beat you there and you'll probably get paged anyway." He mock-punches Patrick's shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, eh?"

"Yeah," Patrick says, grinning crookedly. "Definitely. Have a good night, man," he says, already half-jogging back towards the cottage, taking a more direct route that's fenced off from the main path. Jonny gives him a wave as he does, waiting until he's out of sight behind one of the higher snowbanks to let himself smile as wide as he wants to as he heads for the Winter Wonderland office to clock out. 

He checks the way his cap sits on his head as soon as he walks into the locker room, chuckling at his reflection before pulling the cap off and running his hand through his hair to get rid of the worst of the hat-head. 

Patrick was right—this angle actually _is_ a little more flattering.

\-- -- -- --

Black Friday was hard, taking a toll on every last one of Winter Wonderland's employees, but Jonny wonders if this early-December Tuesday isn't tougher on a lot of them in some very distinct ways.

As he watches the sixth parent in the last two hours take a moment to compose themselves before Jonny starts taking photographs, Jonny knows that the people working in Santa's Village today aren't the only ones feeling it.

The daytime staff during the weekdays is always considerably smaller than the evening and weekend crews. There are usually only four or five elves and one Santa scheduled to work at a time, in fact—the much lighter foot traffic allows for them to utilize the sign that says Santa is unavailable for an hour while most of the employees take their lunch, which means they can get by with a lot less staffing coverage, leaving the shifts to the few employees who were hired for consistent full-time hours and those who had mainly daytime availability.

Today's scheduling had been different, in that Angie had taken a handful of employees aside last week and talked to them about whether or not they wanted to work this particular shift, the four morning hours specially set aside just for patients from the children's hospital who were able to make the trip. Jonny doesn't know how many people might have declined the offer, but he knows at least two answered without any hesitation at all—Patrick and Skittles. Jonny had taken a few seconds to think about it, so that when he told Angie he'd work the camera, she'd known he was certain about his decision.

"You realize it will require more time per visit and there will be more limitations in the poses you have to work with, right?" Angie had asked. "Not everyone might be able to follow the requests we normally make. You'll have to do some improvising."

Jonny had nodded. "Yeah. I know. I still want to work the shift. Everyone should be able to visit with Santa if they want to, no matter what the rest of the year holds for them."

Angie had smiled at him. "That's exactly why we do this every year," she said, jotting something on her scheduling clipboard and heading off to find the next person on her list. 

"We did this with my youngest sister back in Connecticut a few years ago, you know," Skittles tells Jonny as they wait for Hoss and Q to move some of the furniture to a different place in the studio before the next family comes in, aided by Patrick's spotting. "It's really hard to tell people exactly how important these memories are and how much the families appreciate stuff like this."

Jonny hesitates. He doesn’t know most of his coworkers all that well, but he doesn't want to come off as uncaring when it's really just that he's awkward now and then. "Is your sister...?"

Skittles shakes her head. "It was her last Christmas with us. She was eight. Smartest of all of us, always reading, that sort of thing. She wanted to be a professor." She smiles. "She'd have loved to see me as an elf. Always teased me that I had to be part pixie or something, because of my pointy ears and big eyes and little chin." 

"I'm sorry," Jonny says simply, because he's always sorry for anyone who's lost someone close, even if he doesn't know them well. Death is hard to deal with for just about everyone.

She must see the look on Jonny's face, because she knocks into his arm. "Sorry, I know that's kind of awkward to just drop on someone you barely know. That last little girl just looked a lot like my sister. Same nose, same mouth. Similar laugh, even." She glances at the clock above the electric fireplace. "You sure you don't want your break after all?"

"I'm good, thanks," Jonny says. "I think there's only a few more families."

"Just four more!" Patrick calls over his shoulder. Jonny wasn't aware Patrick had been listening to them at all, but it's not as if the photo set is all that large. "Paige is next. She's five. And she's a trip, man." He grins at Hoss as Hoss settles onto his bench and readjusts the padding of his costume that's shifted with the reaching and lifting. "You'll like her. She'd give Sharp a run for his money as far as sassiness goes."

Q chuckles. "I'm not surprised that you consider that an endorsement," he says before stepping back outside now that things are handled for the moment. Honestly, Jonny isn't, either.

They wrap everything up less than an hour later, the whole setup back to normal for the late afternoon and evening shift, and Q sends all of them but Hoss off to the locker rooms to change and go home for the day. He's walking along next to Patrick when Poppy sighs from her spot ahead of them, shaking her head. "I didn't realize how uncomfortable that whole thing would be," she announces to all or none of them; Jonny's under the impression that she's someone who just likes to hear herself talk. "I definitely couldn't do that again. A couple of those were pretty bad, especially that Paige girl who was burned all over. I don't know how y'all handled that one back there, because she creeped me out," she says, pushing her way into the locker room Skittles and Tilly have reached a few minutes before.

Jonny raises his eyebrows, incredulous that someone would actually say something like that and more than a little glad Skittles wasn't within earshot, because he thinks that might have been just the sort of thing to spark an actual incident out here in the hallway. Just in front of him, Patrick's gone rigid. Jonny's not entirely surprised by that, and he reaches out and drops a hand onto Patrick's shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. After a moment, Patrick's posture loosens and Jonny gives a lighter squeeze and rubs his thumb up over the top of his shoulder blade before removing his hand. "Hey, be there in a minute," he tells Patrick. "I've got to get something, first." He turns back and steps into the break room, grabbing his half-finished juice from the fridge. He feels like he needs a literal palate-cleanser after hearing what Poppy just said. Even chugging the rest of it doesn't make the feeling go away completely. 

Amanda comes up behind him as he's tossing the bottle into the cardboard box they're all using as a makeshift recycle bin and pokes him in the back. "How was the thing with the kids? Good?"

"Yeah," Jonny says, nodding, because it was, for the most part. Insensitive asshole coworkers aside.

"Not too sad?"

"Not most of the time, no." He shrugs. "They're just kids. Yeah, some of them are sick, and some are injured and that sort of thing, but they're all just kids."

Amanda nods. "I had a dentist appointment this morning, but I told Angie I'm up for doing the drop-in visit at the hospital on Thursday if she still needs people. Are you doing that?"

"Can't. I've got to go in for a small meeting at my new job's headquarters that afternoon. Couldn't reschedule." He'd have done it, otherwise. There's no real photo setup or anything for that visit, and it's mostly just Angie and Carol and Q taking pictures with their phones and Angie's digital SLR, along with any photos the nurses or patients and their families take on their own. The main point of Thursday afternoon's visit is to have Santa go room to room to visit the kids who weren't able to come to the mall today for whatever reason, a couple of elves in tow to help boost the festive mood and help deliver some of the small wrapped gifts that have been donated by different stores in the mall.

"Tilly's going," Amanda says. "Kandy Kane, too. I don't remember who else. Maybe just them." Jonny hears a jangling version of _Jingle Bells_ playing from somewhere and looks around for it, and Amanda smirks and reaches into her pocket to silence her phone. "Looks like it's that time again," she says, pulling her hat onto her head. "There. I'll catch you later. Enjoy the rest of your day."

"You too." 

By the time Jonny gets back to the locker room, Patrick's no longer there, so Jonny changes quickly and heads outside, forgetting until he's halfway to his usual spot that he'd parked around the other side of this wing of the mall because they'd had things roped off in order to repaint a few rows of parking spots this morning. He has to double back, going against the wind, and he keeps closer to the brick wall of the mall to minimize the chill. Three quarters of the way to his car he hears a noise he at first mistakes for wind, until he catches sight of a familiar figure tucked into a small recess in the wall where it looks like the grounds team used to let some sort of hedge grow. "Patrick?" He moves closer as Patrick hunches further in on himself, realizing after a moment that Patrick's movement was more of an attempt to hide than to get out of the wind. "What's up?"

Patrick shakes his head and quickly wipes at his eyes, not quite looking at Jonny. "Nothing." 

"No, seriously," Jonny presses, because while Patrick might be able to convince some people that his eyes are watering from the wind and his sniffle is due to the cold numbing his nose, Jonny is sure he knows better. "What's wrong?"

"I dunno, man, I just feel really bad that Santa can't give most of those kids what they really want, you know? They warned us we couldn't ask any of them the usual question about what they wanted for Christmas this year, in case someone said something about not being sick or hurt or anything like that, right? But for pretty much all of those kids and definitely all of their parents, that's all they do want. I guess I just feel shitty that I couldn't really do anything."

That's fucking ridiculous. Patrick was fucking unbelievable the entire time those kids were there. He joked with them, he handed out candy canes to kids and family members alike, he asked the kids about their favorite books and movies and Christmas songs while they waited for Jonny and Q to adjust the lighting when it was needed, and he even did the most awkward shuffling dance for one of them that Jonny has ever seen, just to get him to crack a smile for Jonny's camera. "You did, though," Jonny says, cocking his head, trying to figure out if Patrick actually believes what he said. 

"What are you talking about?"

Jonny huffs. "Patrick, you were _great_ with those kids." He was, too. Jonny's not just blowing smoke up his ass. Patrick was so fucking good with them that it made Jonny ache. "You got literally _every single one_ of them to smile, and you got most of them to laugh, too. And I know that at the very least, something like that was on every parents' wish list to Santa."

Patrick sniffles again. "Yeah? You think it made a difference?"

Jonny thinks about what Skittles had said and he nods seriously. "Yeah. You treated those kids like they weren't any different, like they were people, and you got them to smile and laugh for at least a couple of minutes. You definitely made a difference."

Patrick takes a half-step forward, throwing his arms around Jonny and holding on tightly. After a moment of surprise that renders him unable to react, Jonny raises his arms and hugs Patrick back.

He's not sure it should feel this good, but it really, really does.

After a few moments, Patrick takes a sheepish step backwards, his cheeks flushed a brighter pink than they were just a few moments ago. "Sorry. I just—needed to hear something like that, I guess." He punches Jonny lightly in the shoulder like he's trying to re-establish some sort of distance and retract the level of intimacy, as if Jonny had minded at all. "Thanks for letting me be all emo there for a minute."

Jonny shrugs at him and tries to keep his smile casual, wanting to put him at ease. He'd happily hug Patrick for as long as he needed. Even without all the flirting that's been going on between them, Jonny likes spending time with Patrick, just bullshitting about whatever comes to mind, things like talking about the current stats across the league and which teams look like they've got the best shot at the Cup this season, and it's a shame Patrick's schedule is so busy with school and Jonny's such a pussy about trying for more that they’ve only done those things while at work. "Any time." He's about to ask Patrick what he's doing for the rest of the day and see if he wants to grab lunch or a coffee when an old beat-up green and white car pulls up, rap blasting out of the radio so loudly that Jonny can make out most of the words even with the doors shut and windows rolled up.

"My roommate," Patrick says with an embarrassed shrug, as if apologizing for the guy in general. "I've gotta go. Thanks again, Jonny. I'll see you later, yeah?"

"Yeah." Jonny nods, trying not to look disappointed about missing his chance to possibly hang out with Patrick outside of work. "Take care." He waves to Patrick after he's climbed into the car and ducks his head to catch the gaze of Patrick's roommate so he can wave at him too, like he was taught to acknowledge those around you as a kid, making sure he's said goodbye to both before they pull away.

He may not have secured a chance to sit somewhere and hang out with Patrick this time around, but there's no way in hell Jonny's ever forgetting that hug.

\-- -- -- --

Jonny's relishing the quiet of the break room, alone except for Holly—who's thankfully listening to something on her phone using headphones as she bobs her head to the beat—when the silence quite suddenly breaks and the room floods with people.

"Oh, what the hell?" he mutters to himself. He'd still had ten minutes left on his lunch.

"You missed the chaos in the Village, man," Jinxy says, dropping into a chair across from Jonny. "All hell just broke loose."

Jonny furrows his brow. Everyone's talking—loudly—but no one really looks freaked out. A couple of people look a little irritated, but that's it. "What happened?"

"Katrina went and caused a legitimate disaster scene out there."

"Huh?"

"Well, it wasn't really her fault, I don't think," Jinxy says with a shrug. "But I didn't see it from the beginning."

"It wasn't," Patrick says, circling around the rapidly-filling table and sitting in the empty chair to Jonny's right. "Total freak accident, really."

Jonny huffs. "You guys gonna tell me what actually happened, here, or what?"

Patrick shakes his head. "There was some lady out there in one of those motorized scooters who kept trying to roll through the ropes at the edge of the village, I guess. Apparently Cheryl asked her to stop doing that a couple of times, and then Artemi had to leave the entrance to ask her. Tyler said she about ran some little kid over, moving near the exit instead, and when he told her she couldn't be there, either, she got mouthy and he left from the camera station to get Q. Brent said he heard her trying to tell Sharp how to hold the kid on his lap and stuff, and Katrina saw her trying to use her phone to take a bunch of pictures when Tyler was gone. She went to tell Brent so he could talk to the lady instead, and the lady ran her scooter into Katrina's leg—"

"—and you know what a klutz Katrina is," Amanda says, appearing from another knot of people standing nearby and sitting on the table next to Jonny's lunch. He looks at her, eyebrows raised, and she makes a ridiculous face back at him and steals one of his kale chips as Jinxy snorts in amusement.

"—and she managed to trip on one of the cords back there. And then...yeah. Fuckin' chaos," Patrick finishes with a shrug.

"I wonder how much all of that stuff's going to cost to fix," Amanda says, shaking her head and stealing another of Jonny's kale chips like she doesn't think he notices.

"What stuff?" he asks, finally just giving up and handing her the small Tupperware with the rest of them. 

"Cameras, computers, the tripod, some of the decorations, a bunch of the lights, everything," Jinxy says, sounding a little too enthusiastic about the destruction. 

"Wait, who did this?" Jonny asks, confused. 

"Katrina, man, pay attention." When Jonny just looks at him, Jinxy sighs. "You know, the tiny brunette who always paints the little holly berries on her cheek under her left eye?" Jinxy raises his eyebrows. "Or do you just never work with her?"

"Oh, Tilly, you mean," Jonny says, finally able to put a face to her, and Patrick looks at him weirdly just as Q and Angie walk into the break room and Q claps his hands for attention. 

"All right, listen up. It's going to take at least a few hours to get everything cleaned up and re-set," Q says once everyone's quiet enough. "And we've got someone looking at it, but the camera might need an actual repair. In any case, we're not going to be up and running until well after our peak period. So we've made the call to close down the village for the night. We'll resume tomorrow—with some of our older backup equipment, if necessary—at the normal time. We apologize that some of you are losing hours, but there's not really much we can do about it right now. Thanks for handling yourselves well out there, especially those of you who helped us clear the families in line out of the village. We really appreciate it. So for now, I guess go enjoy your unexpected free time, and we'll pick up tomorrow."

There's a mixture of quiet cheers and some groans at the dismissal, and everyone shoves towards the locker rooms to make a break for their freedom. Jonny's far back enough that he figures he'll wait till things thin out a little, and it takes him a moment to realize Patrick's still sitting next to him and hasn't left with everyone else to push their way to the locker rooms. Once Jonny looks at him, Patrick just shakes his head at Jonny disapprovingly. "Unbelievable."

"What?"

"You don't actually know anyone's name here!" Patrick snorts. "I saw the look on your face when you finally realized Katrina was Tilly. You've been working with these people for like eight hours a day for _two weeks_ , dude. Do you know _anyone's_ name?"

"Yes, _Patrick,"_ Jonny says sarcastically, though he's realizing that Patrick may not actually be all that off-base here. Whoops.

"Okay, besides mine, then. Name someone else."

"Amanda," Jonny says, nodding towards the door, where the back of her head's still visible in the slowly-shrinking crowd.

Patrick makes a face. "Okay, that's two. Wanna tell me Jinxy's or Biscuit's real names? Or Tyler's elf name? Or who Artemi is?"

Jonny groans, a little embarrassed. "Ugh, fine. You win. I didn't really even think about it, because all we use is elf names, but...yeah, I suck."

Patrick rolls his eyes, but he's smiling a little underneath the exasperation. "Only a little. Mostly, you're just a dork." He bumps his arm against Jonny's. "Jinxy's real name is Andrew, and Biscuit is Brent, all right? Tyler is Applesauce. And Artemi is Gingerbread. Man, we've got to give you some worksheets or charts or some shit for this," he laughs. "What is it, some mental thing you developed because you're used to nicknames for your hockey buddies or something? Or is this some weird Canadian cultural thing?"

"No," Jonny says, feeling his cheeks heat up as he makes a face. He's literally never thought about it before today, but he _does_ use a lot of nicknames with people. 

Patrick snorts. "I guess I should feel special that you actually know my name, then."

Jonny doesn't actually have a reply to that, so he just sort of laughs awkwardly and stands up, half-waiting for Patrick to join him in heading for the locker room.

Patrick doesn't give him any more shit for being such a failure on the social-identification front. In fact, he doesn't really say anything until he's changed out of his uniform entirely and Jonny's sitting on the bench in front of their lockers, bent over to tie his shoes. "Hey," he says, kicking lightly at Jonny's other shoed foot. "What do you have going on the rest of the day?"

"Nothing," Jonny says, shrugging. "Why?"

"I dunno, I was thinking that since I have some free hours I didn't see coming, I might head to one of the outdoor rinks for a while. I don't think there's any adult Rat Hockey scheduled for today anywhere, but most places should have open skate right now. And you said you moved here pretty recently, so I thought you might want to know some of the better places to skate around Chicago." He's still got his head down, looking at his own feet instead of at Jonny. "But it's cool if you're not up for it. No hard feelings."

"No!" Jonny says quickly. "I mean, yeah, that sounds great. Thanks."

Patrick looks up and beams at him. "Awesome. You have your own skates anywhere you can get to them, or do we need to do one of the rinks that has rentals?"

Jonny shrugs a little sheepishly. "I've got a pair in my trunk, I think. I usually have an older spare set in there."

Patrick laughs. "That's such a Canadian answer, oh my God. All right, then, I think I know just the place. We can meet there in about an hour, if you want to go home first for anything." He looks down again, rubbing the back of his neck as he toes at a small imperfection in the locker room floor. "Unless you don't mind carpooling? I could even drive."

"We may as well go together." Jonny gives himself mental points for not sounding too eager as he stands up and grabs his coat. It's actually kind of charming how many nervous vibes Patrick's giving off for just an offer to hang out and skate for an hour or two. "Just let me get my skates out of my car."

There's still a little light left in the sky when they get to the rink after a twenty-minute drive, and Patrick pays for admission for both of them—despite Jonny arguing that he can get it, since Patrick drove them—and leads Jonny right to a bank of coin-operated lockers like he's been here a lot and it's all auto-pilot or instinct. He pins the key to the sweatshirt he's wearing underneath his coat and pats the lump with a grin. "All right. Shoes all safe. Ready?"

"Let's fucking go," Jonny says with a nod. He can practically hear the ice calling to him. 

Patrick laughs, but he doesn't make Jonny wait any longer.

The rink Patrick's picked—Warren Park, which he'd said was the largest park on the north side—has its share of other skaters, but it's far from packed. "Just try this on a weekend," Patrick laughs when Jonny mentions it. "It's not so bad right now because it's Monday afternoon and the schools are in session until the end of this week. But trust me, it'll get there."

The rink empties a little more as it gets darker, and when the lights around the rink switch on, there's enough room to move that Jonny feels comfortable egging Patrick on a little, pushing him to show Jonny that he's as good as he'd claimed the other week—whether that's skating patterns of their own design or switching between skating forwards and backwards or whatever else Jonny can think of to engage Patrick in some competition that doesn't require use of a stick and puck. 

The longer they're on the ice together, the more Jonny thinks Patrick wasn't just talk about being good when he gave Jonny shit the other night.

It's sort of a turn-on, if he's honest about it.

Jonny manages to catch his skate in a deep groove somewhere near the middle of the ice at one point while they're racing, and he goes down right on his ass, but even the embarrassment of that is lessened by the way Patrick skates back to him to help him up even though Jonny's already back on his feet by the time he gets there. 

"You okay?" Patrick asks, a little breathless in his exertion.

"Yeah, nothing I'm not used to," Jonny says, trying to dust the ice shavings off his jeans before they melt into the denim and freeze.

"And you've got plenty of God-given padding to cushion your fall," Patrick smirks at him, reaching out to brush some more of the shaved ice off Jonny's hip. "Lucky you."

Jonny's pretty sure he blushes at that, but his face is half-numb with cold and probably already so red that no one should be the wiser. He rubs where he hit the ice and winces a little. "Shit always stings a little more when it's this cold out, though," he mutters, trying to work a little warmth into the muscle of his ass to lessen the ache that's still lingering there from the initial impact.

"Oh thank God, Canadians _can_ feel cold," Patrick says, looking desperately relieved. "I'm fucking freezing right now, but I wasn't going to say anything until you did." He pulls out his phone from a zippered pocket on the chest of his coat and checks something on it before stuffing it back into place for safe-keeping. "That's because it's almost nine o'clock. And it's a whopping eighteen degrees _without_ factoring the wind chill."

"And you're wearing the world's thinnest gloves," Jonny adds. He's got a nice, thick pair on his own hands, and even the tips of _his_ fingers are noticeably cold. At least they're both wearing toques, and all the movement's kept them from freezing too much.

"Yeah, that's what I get for last-minute plans," Patrick says with a laugh. "Speaking of. I've got class to teach at eight in the morning. We should probably head out."

He's right, of course, but Jonny hates to admit it—mostly because he's been having a great time and doesn't want it to end. 

"Hey," Patrick says as they're changing out of their skates, side-by-side on a small bench. "You remember where we parked, right?" When Jonny gives him a slightly-perplexed 'yeah', he nods. "Great. I've got to take care of something, if you don't mind warming up the car?"

Jonny shrugs. "Yeah, sure." It's kind of a weird request, but whatever. Maybe Patrick really has to pee or something and doesn't want Jonny to tag along. He takes the keys Patrick tosses at him. 

"Okay. See you in a few minutes."

The car's still running mostly cold when Patrick reaches it, and Jonny's trying to decide whether or not to change the radio station to some country station, just to fuck with Patrick after their argument over whose taste in music is better on the drive up here when the driver's side door opens and Patrick more or less falls into the seat, his hands full. "Here," he says, thrusting something at Jonny. "That one's for you. Thought you could use something to help thaw you out."

Jonny takes the drink cup automatically and then realizes what it is and feels bad he's not going to be able to do anything other than use it as a hand-warmer. "I appreciate it, but I can't—" he begins, but Patrick shakes his head.

"Yeah, I know," he says, smiling a little. "It's semi-sweet chocolate, made with almond milk, and they skipped the whipped cream and homemade caramel sauce when I asked. Totally dairy free, I promise. I checked." He laughs. "It's even gluten-free, too, though the girl looked at me like I was an idiot when I asked. But someone else said that shit's hidden in everything, so it wasn't the stupidest question ever, even if she acted like it."

Jonny just stares at him, a little stunned. He's got friends back home he's known for years who _still_ can't remember things like that Jonny can't eat pizza when they order in; Patrick's known him for three weeks or so and already remembers shit like Jonny's dietary limitations, which he's mentioned all of once each. "Holy shit. This is. That's really thoughtful of you." He's actually pretty touched. Sometimes his own _brother_ still offers him stuff without considering Jonny's diet.

"Don't mention it," Patrick says, shrugging, but Jonny's pretty sure he's fighting a large smile by the warm tone of his voice.

"No, really. Thank you." He takes a cautious sip of the drink, testing the temperature so he doesn't do something stupid like burn his mouth all to hell. "It's really good."

"If you think this is good, we'll have to skate over at the MB Financial Park over in Rosemont sometime and stop at The Sugar Factory after," Patrick says, putting his own drink in the cup holder so he can back out of the parking space. "That shit's to die for. Guess we'd have to check if there's anything you can eat or drink there, first, though, because I'm going to pretend not to know you if you only order a salad at a place like that."

"Sure," Jonny says easily, trying to hide how warm and fuzzy it makes him feel that Patrick's already thinking of hanging out again. He'd go even if he can't order a single thing on the menu. He takes another sip of his drink as Patrick pulls into traffic, hiding his smile against the cup that's warming his fingers. He's never going to say it aloud, but having Santa's Village out of commission for a portion of the night might be the best thing that's happened to him all holiday season.

\-- -- -- --

Things are already a little hectic a few evenings later, the crowd in Santa's Village compounded by people hanging out near the small stage off at far other side of the plaza to listen to the choir from one of the local middle schools perform a selection of Christmas carols and complicating things a bit, when an extra little wrinkle develops.

"Um, I think Carol's trying to get your attention," Jonny tells Q, watching as she stands outside the boundaries of the Village and waves her arms in their direction. He can see her pretty clearly from his spot at the register, but no one else is really facing that way, other than some visitors and shoppers who probably wonder why the little old lady standing outside of the village ropes is flailing in Santa's direction.

Q mutters something about needing to get the batteries and connections checked in some of the headsets that they use during busier periods and turns around to look where Jonny's gesturing. "Oh," he says, spotting her. "Street clothes. Guess that explains why she didn't just come and get me. Hold down the fort," he says, clapping Jonny on the shoulder as he heads Carol's direction. "I'll be right back."

"Oooh, Q put you in chaaaaarge," Patrick sing-songs under his breath as Sharp smirks underneath his beard at the comment he can clearly hear from where he sits facing the camera. "Look at you, promoted to Elf Captain." He hums. "Actually, if elves make toys for Santa in his workshop, does that mean you’re the foreman? Should we get you a clipboard? Maybe a hardhat? Can you fit all that _information_ about presents under a hardhat?"

"Oh, just shut up and take the next kid's picture," Jonny mutters as a little girl steps shyly through the gate, gently pushed along by her mother. Patrick just laughs at him.

Q doesn't return for another ten or fifteen minutes—and when he does, he looks frazzled. He walks straight over to Lutin—who Jonny still thinks has the best name of them all, just because of how he'd claimed it; he'd apparently ignored Sharp's urging of French Toast and Holly's suggestion of Blizzard and given Carol his request, using the proper French pronunciation and spelling the word out for her without telling anyone that it was the first non-cognate version of "elf" he could think of until Jonny saw his nametag the next morning and cracked up, prompting everyone to wonder what was so funny—and leans over to whisper something to him that has the kid nodding determinedly, taking the stack of small slips of paper Q hands him and stepping outside the gate, shutting it behind him.

That's definitely not protocol, and both Jonny and Patrick share a look as Q hovers just out of the camera's view, apparently waiting for Sharp to finish up with the little girl on his lap.

Jonny's barely handed the girl's mother her purchased thumb-drive and the printout of her order confirmation of a little ceramic display plate with the wreath painted around her chosen image when Q steps forward and leans in to talk to Sharp, whose eyes go wide before he blurts "holy shit, are you serious?"

...And that's probably exactly why Q waited until there were no children within earshot or view before telling Sharp whatever it was he needed to share.

Q nods, and Jonny thinks there's a twitch of a smile underneath that mustache as Sharp just stares at him, mouth hanging open before he jumps up out of his chair and whoops. Before anyone else can ask what the hell is going on, Q claps Sharp on the back and grins more fully. "Well, go on, we'll handle it here. You get your ass out of here and keep us updated, you got it?"

"I will!" Sharp says, nodding fervently. He looks around at the rest of them, grinning like an idiot. "Wife's having our baby! I'm finally gonna be a dad! Holy shit, I'm gonna be a dad."

Jonny gives him a hearty congratulations, glad he's not standing as close to Sharp as Patrick is, because Patrick gets dragged into a hug that's half headlock with a dash of noogie thrown in just before Sharp moves faster than Jonny would have thought the Santa suit padding would have allowed, headed in the direction of the locker rooms.

"So, little bit of a changeup," Q says in Sharp's wake. "We can't get another Santa here for three hours, when Hossa will be in. Ed's out of town till tomorrow, and we haven't been able to reach Bobby by phone. If Angie weren't out sick and could cover the floor, I'd do it," he says, prompting Jonny to wonder if Q looks less intimidating when he's in a red suit with a full beard. "So we're rolling with it, since we've already had to close down once this season and we're not letting that happen again if we can help it at all. So. Toes—you think you can handle the job?"

Jonny blinks. "Me?"

"You're the right height and shoe size for the uniform and I think you'll take the job seriously," Q says, and Jonny's honestly not sure how he feels about that. He's really not the Santa type. Sharp is, to use Jinxy's description from the other week, "the suavest, smoothest Santa south of the North Pole," joking with the kids, and he'd probably be an even bigger hit with the mothers if he were wearing anything other than the beard and padded suit; Hoss is quieter but good-natured with an easy smile that the kids open up to; Jonny hasn't really worked much with Ed or Bobby, but Bobby's at least in his seventies and lends a bit of authenticity to the role, and Ed looks more natural in all that padding than anyone else Jonny's ever seen. "You know the script, know what you're doing. So, do you think you can handle it?"

"I—yeah, I can do it," Jonny says, swallowing down any doubts about how he's really not someone most people would consider 'jolly' and nodding decisively. All he has to do is sit there, greet the kids, ask them if they've been good, find out what they want, and wait for the photographer to take the photo before sending them back to their waiting guardian. He can do that a few dozen times.

"Good man," Q says. "Now, the uniform has the suit, plus the padding, and the padding's got some tricks to it to make it sit right without being uncomfortable, and I can't help you with adjusting it just yet, because I have something else that needs immediate attention, but I can walk you through a few tips—"

"I could help," Patrick pipes up, and both Jonny and Q turn to look at him. He shrugs. "Sharp had me help him adjust some of the straps and buckles and laces when he'd hurt his shoulder that first week. It'd probably be quicker than if Jon—Twinkle Toes—had to figure it out on his own for the first time."

"Good point," Q says, nodding. "It's frustrating the first few times you put it on by yourself. I do remember that from my own stints. All right, boys, head for the locker rooms. Carol should already have the spare uniform waiting for you at the desk. Let's go."

"You're just all about the promotions today," Patrick laughs as they step through the door to the back passageways that will take them to the space occupied by Winter Wonderland. "Head man himself, this time." He grins, and Jonny has a brief wave of nerves. It's too bad Patrick's too small for the suit—he's got the better demeanor with kids, he'd probably be a total natural and nail the Santa gig. He must see the look on Jonny's face, because he claps a hand on Jonny's back, his palm resting reassuringly between Jonny's shoulder blades. "Relax, man. Q wouldn't have made you fill in if he thought you were going to fuck it up. He'd probably have had you head the floor and don the headset while he filled in for Sharp if he was worried about it. Most of the elves would listen to you if you had the position, no question. You've got a good authority and responsibility vibe going for you. And Q thinks you're dependable. So quit your freak-out, got it?"

"Yeah," Jonny says. It's not the most eloquent pep talk he's ever gotten, but it feels authentic enough. "All right." Patrick's hand pats him reassuringly before settling back into place as they walk up to Carol's desk at the front of the office, and Jonny's glad for its presence. He gets the suit and padding from Carol, and Patrick snags the boots and all the accessories, following along after him into the locker room. Waffles walks out as they walk in, raising his eyebrows, but Jonny just shrugs and keeps moving. 

"Here, start with the socks," Patrick says as Jonny's stripping off his tights, left only in his undershirt and underwear. He holds out the padding, which Jonny is immensely relieved to find is really only meant to cover his chest and middle, which means he doesn't have to have a repeat performance of finding his ass won't fit into his uniform. There _are_ straps, presumably to keep it from moving around too much once it's on, and a couple clasps that Jonny thinks are meant to attach to the inside of the suit to keep it laying close to the padding like it would if Jonny were the right size to fill in a similar suit on his own. "Then put this on. Don't worry about the zipper on the back, I can get that for you."

"Thanks," Jonny says, feeling legitimately grateful. He still remembers the first time he'd ever put on a full uniform for hockey, having to get into all the padding that went under his jersey, and how much time that had seemed to take, delaying the moment he could finally play, and this feels just a little like that—only he's not looking forward to stepping back into Santa's Village nearly as much as he'd wanted to step onto that ice.

"No problem," Patrick says, stepping back to give Jonny some room to flail his way into the base layer of the costume. The padding is surprisingly light-weight, for which Jonny is grateful—he hadn't immediately thought about how hot the suit might get, especially with the bright lights for the camera shining on him. He hands Jonny each new piece of the costume, and Jonny's can't really feel Patrick's hands through the padding as he pats things flat and slides some of the clips into place, which is either a shame or a blessing, he's not really sure which. 

Patrick watches as Jonny does up the belt, which has a legitimate buckle instead of being some Velcro thing, and he shakes his head when Jonny sits and reaches for the boots, the last thing Jonny needs to get into, other than the beard-wig combo, the hat, and the gloves. "Nah, let me," he says, promptly dropping to his knees at Jonny's feet. He slides his hand down and around the back of Jonny's calf, prompting him to lift his foot so he can slide it into the boot Patrick braces between his knees, and Jonny has a hell of a hard time banishing the sort of thoughts that fly though his head at the sight of Patrick on the floor between his legs, the tip of his tongue poking out between his teeth as he tugs the fur-lined cuff of the uniform pants down past the top of the boot and moves on to doing Jonny's other one.

"That okay?" Patrick asks a moment later, looking up at Jonny through his lashes. He's got the palm of one hand resting lightly just at the bend of Jonny's knee, his fingers curled up over the lowest part of Jonny's thigh, and Jonny swallows hard and nods, not trusting his voice right now. Patrick gives him a brief smile and pats Jonny's knee. "Good." He gets gracefully to his feet and cocks his head to the side, surveying Jonny's new uniform before he nods, seemingly satisfied. "Red looks good on you," he says, and then he laughs once, smirking.

"What?" Jonny asks, flexing his toes within the boots. They're not as flexible as the elf shoes, but he also doesn't have to stand for hours in these, he supposes.

Patrick chuckles and reaches out to help Jonny up off the bench. He stands in front of Jonny and tugs lightly on the hem of the jacket, then runs his hand down the white fur trim that runs up Jonny's chest, smoothing it. "I was just thinking," he murmurs, "that this is the first time in something like twenty years that I've kinda wanted to sit on Santa's lap." 

Jonny chokes on air and Patrick laughs, bending down to grab the beard and wig and holding it out to Jonny while he coughs and clears his throat. "Ha, it worked," he says, and his eyes sparkle while he smirks widely, looking pleased with himself. "There we go, now your cheeks are nice and rosy, just like they should be."

Jonny regrets every decision he's ever made that's led him here.

He regrets them even more five minutes later, when he takes his spot on Santa's chair and Patrick whistles low, grinning when he says, "Holy hell, man, your thighs are perfect for this—you could fit triplets on that lap, easy!"

This time it's Jinxy who chokes, standing at his spot behind the camera, only his problem is more laughter than anything else.

He's not laughing half an hour later, though.

"Oh my _God_ ," Jinxy groans, rolling his eyes skyward as soon as the most recent kid is done, this one a little boy who wasn't even old enough to sit up completely on his own. "What is with your _face_? I can't even figure out how you're doing it, but you need to cool it, man, or we're going to be here all night trying to get useable pictures. And I've got a date, okay, I have to actually be off on time."

"Hoss will be in to take over in a couple of hours," Patrick points out. "And they can't be that bad—he's got a beard covering most of his face."

"Come take a look," Jinxy insists, pointing at the monitor while he glares at Jonny. "It's a good thing _he_ didn't get named Buddy, because smiling is _definitely_ not his favorite." Patrick walks over and looks, and then he huffs a laugh, shaking his head at Jonny, who sulks a little. Jinxy sighs. "See? I do not get paid enough for this, I really don't."

"Switch me, then," Patrick says. "You be Signal and Support Elf for a little while, and I'll try my hand behind the camera."

"Deal!" Jinxy says, backing away immediately from the camera and computer and letting Patrick step in. "I'll hit the signal for the guy at the gate as soon as you're ready."

"Go for it," he says, then looks up at Jonny as if to say he knows Jonny can do better.

Jonny huffs to himself and sets his jaw. He's not making his face do anything weird, damn it. It's not his fault Jinxy's had to do so many retakes. 

They go through three more kids before Patrick has Jinxy hold off on signaling the next one in, stepping up to Jonny and shaking his head. "Okay. Clearly we need to try something else. Are you just still uptight?" he asks, frowning.

"No," Jonny says, frowning back at him. It makes the beard tickle his face, and he scratches at it. He hasn't seen the photos, but he also hasn't made any kids cry or anything since sitting over here, so it can't be that he looks angry or anything. 

"Hm," Patrick responds, clearly not believing him. "Let's try this anyway." Before Jonny can ask what it is he wants to try, Patrick steps back around the chair and puts his hands on Jonny's shoulders, digging his thumbs into the place Jonny's shoulders usually knot up, and yeah, okay, maybe they're a little tighter than normal. He kneads vigorously for a second, and then moves his hands closer together, essentially cupping the back of his neck while his thumbs drag over the hot skin that's somehow exposed between the wig and furry collar of the jacket, and Jonny immediately tightens right back up, the hysterical thought _someone make him stop touching me, if he does this much longer or while a kid's in my lap, I'm going to be sent to prison_ slamming around his brain.

"Guess not," Patrick says, pulling his hands off immediately once Jonny tenses. "Gonna have to think of something else."

"It might just be hopeless," Jinxy says helpfully from his spot on the other side of the fireplace. 

This time, both Jonny _and_ Patrick give him a dirty look, and Jonny feels a little better.

"And what would you like for Christmas?" Jonny asks the next kid—an adorable little black-haired girl of around six or seven, who's missing a tooth and looks like she's stepped off a greeting card—when she scrambles onto his lap. He tries not to look up at Patrick, who's probably giving him disappointed looks over whatever it is that his face is apparently doing. 

The little girl looks at him very seriously. "I can tell you whatever I want, right? Even if it's not what my grandma or my sister or my teacher or my best friends tell me I want instead?"

Jonny tries not to let apprehension show on his face. He hasn't had anything other than the requests for toys and electronics and one very passionate plea for a puppy—and that little boy's father had thankfully given Jonny a thumbs up from over the kid's shoulder, indicating that particular Christmas wish was already on the way to coming true—and he hopes to God this kid isn't going to ask for something like a visit from a recently-deceased relative, or for Mommy and Daddy to not get divorced, because he's not actually sure how to answer something like that. "You can always tell Santa exactly what you want," Jonny assures her. "And sometimes I can't get it to you right away for Christmas morning, but I will always do my best." The little girl nods, like that's good enough for her, and Jonny thanks the heavens that this kid doesn't seem to be one of the spoiled little bratty ones. "So tell Santa what you'd like for Christmas this year."

She takes a deep breath. "I want a helmet."

"Like for bikes?"

"No." She shakes her head. "For hockey! A hockey mask, I mean! A goalie mask. I want a red one, but black or white's okay, too, if you can't make red."

Jonny can't help but grin. "Why red?"

"Because it's like our team!" the little girl says, beaming at him. She sticks one leg out, almost kicking him in the thigh, and yanks the hem of her jeans up around her shin. "Like on my socks, see?" she says, displaying a pair of bright red socks with the four feathers on one side of the ankle and the Indian head logo on the other. She suddenly looks at Jonny suspiciously. "Do you know about hockey?"

"We play it a lot at the North Pole," Jonny tells her seriously. "The ponds are always frozen up there, so we get to play all year long."

"That is so cool," she breathes, and Jonny agrees, grinning at her. 

Patrick doesn't make them go through a million retakes this time, and Jonny gives the little girl a high-five before helping her down off his lap and reminding her to be good. When he looks up, Patrick's practically beaming at him, and Jonny raises his eyebrows. "What?"

"Apparently 'hockey' is the magic key to making your face behave," Patrick says, tapping at the computer to archive the images and make them available to the computer at the register, where the little girl is standing with her parents, pointing at her feet and gesturing back at Jonny. "Those were easily the best pictures you've taken today. I even got a good one of the high-five."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. So I dunno, even if the rest of the kids ask for something boring or awful, just think about how Santa could stick a puck in everyone's stocking this year or something, and maybe we'll be good for the rest of afternoon?"

Jonny laughs. "Okay. But what about for those on the naughty list? Still coal?"

"Maybe tickets to an Avs game?"

Jonny snorts. "Ouch. That's a little harsh."

Patrick grins at him and shrugs. "I dunno, maybe just the puck thing then, whatever."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you think will help."

Just as long as he doesn't give Jonny any more public massages, really, Jonny's willing to try just about anything.

\-- -- -- --

Jonny's not sure if it's in the water here in Chicago or just in the air, but everyone in this city is cranky as _fuck_ today.

"It's only going to get worse the closer we get," Q says with a sigh. He's already had to have mall security come and escort one woman out of the village when she'd thrown a fit because "she shouldn't have to pay for pictures with a Santa that's not fat enough," despite asking for the largest print package even after seeing the photo proofs. Holly had also told her she couldn't give her a dozen of the thirty-five dollar super fancy three-dimensional ceramic picture frames for free in compensation when she'd continued to complain, which had led to a snow-globe being lobbed at her head. From the retellings Jonny's heard, it seems Gingerbread was willing to drag the woman out on his own, if security didn't get there fast enough. "Happens every year—we get past the point where certain specialty items are available for pickup before Christmas, and people lose it."

"Then they shouldn't wait till the last minute to do this sort of thing," Jonny mutters, and Q chuckles.

"No, they shouldn't, but you can't really say that when some kid is crying because their mom is screaming at the top of her lungs how her poor old at-death's-door mother is going to be so disappointed she can't have a photo blanket of her grandbaby on Christmas morning that she might keel over and die from heartbreak right into her figgy pudding and it will be all our fault." Jonny just raises his eyebrows, and Q shrugs. "That was my favorite rant of the season, five years ago. Last year was almost disappointingly tame by comparison." He looks at the watch he keeps hidden underneath the fur-trimmed cuffs of his long green and white jacket. "Why don't you head up front and work at the entrance with Kandy Kane for a while? Tell Daisy to head back and give Waffles a break from the camera."

"Sure." He heads up to the front via one of the back paths that they don't let the public access, picking up an empty Starbucks cup someone's tossed over the side of the waiting path and chucking it into the nearest trash can he can find. He picks his way through the displays and has to ask a couple of kids to stop trying to climb on the penguins as he does. One of the kids looks guilty and runs back to someone standing in line, but the other just stares at him defiantly and refuses to move, and Jonny stares right back until the kid mutters under his breath and trudges back another direction to their own family. The mother gives Jonny the world's dirtiest look as he walks by, and he just raises his eyebrows at her and points to the large sign that asks everyone to stay on the path and to not bother the penguins, polar bears, and other displays, walking away when she only glares at him more. 

Jonny hopes both mother and son get lumps of coal in their stockings this year. 

He steps around the polar bears—one of which looks like it's missing a scarf that was definitely there this morning—and finally gets close enough to the front gate to see a handful of people standing in a tight group in a way that makes some little alarm bell in Jonny's head start ringing faintly. Amanda's in place, standing in front of the group, and Jonny can see the tension in her posture from here. The group of people is made solely of teenage guys—Jonny would put them all at sixteen to nineteen—and he can't hear what one of them is saying, but he _does_ see the way Amanda looks over her shoulder and Patrick steps right up next to her in response, saying something to the guy who keeps moving closer. There aren't any visitors right at the entrance at the moment, and Jonny doesn't know if that's a coincidence, or if people are just avoiding this group of douchebags.

"I bet you smell like a flower, Daisy," the guy says, totally ignoring Patrick, as Jonny draws close enough to hear. "And taste just like candy."

"Lay off," Patrick tells the guy, as Amanda snorts and shakes her head, muttering something under her breath that has Patrick raising his eyebrows at her, before addressing him directly. "You're never getting a girl if you approach strangers like this," she says, and Jonny admires the way she stares him down, not backing up in the least. He thinks she could probably take the guy if she really wanted to. Her eyes flick to Jonny, who motions back towards Santa's Cottage and pantomimes taking a photograph, and she nods at him and then leaves with a parting shot before walking back the way Jonny had come: "Unless you want to go sit on Santa's lap, how about you run along?"

"Sit on Santa's lap?" the guy scoffs as she disappears over the little hill. "I'm not some little kid!"

"Could've fooled me," Patrick mutters.

The posturing asshole who's serving as ringleader doesn't take kindly to that at all, snapping a "what!" and stepping up in Patrick's space, puffing out his chest and trying to loom over him, even though he's only an inch or two taller. Patrick rolls his eyes, and that doesn't exactly go over well, either. The guy raises a hand and pushes Patrick in the shoulder, and Jonny sees red. 

"Keep your hand to yourself or lose it," he growls, so close he's nearly pressed against Patrick's side and within effortless reach of the other guy. He could easily reach up and grab the guy's shirt, yank him down and punch him in his face, and he _wants_ to. "And if you don't want a pointy shoe somewhere _really_ unpleasant, you'll get the hell out of here, right now."

The guy doesn't get the chance to see if Jonny intends to make good on his threat, because one of his friends yanks him backwards by the collar as a pair of Chicago PD officers and one member of the mall security service walk around the corner by the sports memorabilia shop, and all five of them head straight for the nearest exit. "Fucking Avs tickets are a million times too good for assholes like that," Jonny mutters, trying to calm the urge to grab one of the large plastic ornaments near his feet so he can lob it at the back of the guy's head.

Next to him, Patrick laughs, sounding sort of breathy and surprised, and Jonny shakes himself. "Sorry," he mutters. "I was already ready to hit him for the remark to Amanda, and then he touched you, and I wanted to end him."

"Did you hear what she said in response?" Patrick asks, still looking at Jonny kind of funny.

"About sitting on Santa's lap? Yeah."

"No, before that. When he said that stupid-ass bullshit about how she probably tasted like candy?" Jonny shakes his head. "She said something like 'you're about to taste your own nuts when I kick them up into your throat'. God, I almost wish he had heard that—but then he'd probably be dead, and you'd be deported." He grins crookedly at Jonny. "And I don't want you deported."

"You don't, eh?"

"Nope," Patrick says as a little girl comes running up to the entrance to Santa's Village, narrowly missing getting run over by three different mall patrons as her shopping-bag-laden mother scurries after her, calling her name and telling her not to run. His grin twitches up a little higher on one side. "And for the record, not that I couldn't handle myself, but it's nice to know there's someone willing to fight for you if it came down to it." He nudges Jonny with an elbow. "And just a little hot, when it's not on the ice," he murmurs, smirking as he drops down to one knee and catches the careening child before she can plow into one of the candy-cane lampposts. 

Jonny chuckles, but it's just a little rough as he tries to process that last comment, afraid to look at Patrick too much, in case any other stupid urges surface and his body tries to listen to those, too.

He's such a mess. And honestly, he's not even sure if he _cares_ at this point.

\-- -- -- --

Jonny's starting to wonder if the universe has put Patrick in his path just to see how long he can go before he breaks. Or maybe before he just gives in and pounces on him.

But that's okay, because Jonny only has to last a little while longer. He has a Plan. And one way or another, he'll get this shit figured out soon.

He starts first thing in the morning, knowing that he and Patrick both drew the short straw, having to close on Christmas Eve. While other places in the mall are preparing for the inevitable rush of last-minute shoppers, Q and Angie have told them all that the twenty-fourth isn't nearly as hectic as the weekend before Christmas. Yes, there are still visitors to Santa's Village, but the majority of them are parents who are back for another round to please their kids while they drag them along to stores that have given deeper discounts, trying to wring the last profits from the holiday season, or adults doing it for the fun of it to prove to themselves that they're still fun and cute and spontaneous—or, more likely, they're just looking for a cheap option for a cute photograph to post to their social media accounts. "It really shouldn't be too bad," Angie tells Jonny when she posts the schedule for their last week. "We're not going to keep you guys here too late. We know everyone has places to be for Christmas."

"Not everyone," Patrick had muttered from his spot at a nearby table, and Jonny had silently agreed. He can't make it back home for Christmas, either, and he doesn't really know a damned person in Chicago that he hasn't seen in over-the-top red, green, white, and gold clothes outside of his landlord and the handful of people he'd met for four hours earlier in the month who will be his coworkers after the first of the year. It's not going to make this his Worst Christmas Ever by itself, but it's not really his ideal, either.

It's approaching noon when Jonny makes his way into the Winter Wonderland office, and he sees Patrick sitting in the breakroom, already in costume and texting on his phone when he walks past the door on his way to the locker room. He gets dressed in a hurry and makes it to the breakroom before Patrick leaves, and he tries to slow his walk and look casual when he steps up behind him at the table. He can see Patrick in what looks like a group text message conversation, and he looks away so he's not being too nosy. "Hey," he says, clearing his throat, and Patrick jumps and nearly drops his phone in his haste to shove it in his pocket. "Merry Christmas."

"Huh?" Patrick says, polite confusion on his face as he turns around to look at Jonny. His eyes go to the thing Jonny's holding out between them, and his eyebrows raise skeptically. "Coffee?"

"Sort of," Jonny says. "I thought it might help to push through our last shift, you know?" He brandishes the one in his right hand again. "This one's for you."

Patrick tilts his head a little to the side, but he takes the cup Jonny's offering and gives him a smile. "Thanks." Jonny mumbles a "you're welcome" in response and moves to sit in the chair across from him, biding his time. After a moment, Patrick takes a sip of his drink, and Jonny watches his eyes go wide. "Oh my God, what is this?"

"Eggnog latte," Jonny says, fighting the smug smile that wants to slide over his face at the pleasantly shocked expression Patrick's making. "With whipped cream and a little cinnamon." He'd watched the barista make it; it's made with actual steamed eggnog and not some crappy artificially-flavored syrup, and Jonny thought Patrick might at least appreciate the attempt, even if it tasted like shit—which Jonny thinks is possible, since the very idea of hot eggnog sounds disgusting, let alone mixing hot eggnog with a shot of espresso. He sips his own vanilla-almond tea. "I thought it sounded like your sort of thing. Is it any good?"

"It's fucking awesome," Patrick says, looking a little gleeful. "Thanks again, man."

"No problem." Jonny grins to himself, watching Patrick take a long drink. So far, so good.

This shift actually is easier than the last week's have been. The staff is smaller, and Jonny spends most of his half-day of work joking around with Hoss and Patrick and Amanda in between visitors. Most of the kids who want to see Santa today are practically vibrating with anticipation for later tonight or tomorrow morning, and no one cries or bites or kicks anyone in the shins—a definite improvement over the standard daily operations. It's a nice surprise.

The other surprise, really, is how many fucking people ask Santa and his elves to assist in their marriage proposals. In the hours between noon and four-thirty, Jonny's personally in on _six_ proposals, all of them a little different. One guy has obviously pre-planned this for a while, because when Hoss reaches into the little velvet bag usually filled with candy canes at the very end of the visit, saying his usual line about having a little something special for the woman who'd gingerly sat on his lap at her boyfriend's urging, instead of pulling out one of the little peppermint candies, he presents her with a little red velvet ring box.

There are hugs. And tears.

Some of those tears aren't even from the bride-to-be; Patrick sheds a few of his own. Because, apparently, he is a _massive_ fucking sap.

"Oh my God, _get it together,"_ Jinxy hisses to Patrick at one point, stepping up behind him at the camera and poking him in the back. "You're like my mom when she watches movies on the Lifetime Network, what the hell, man?"

"Shut up," Patrick mutters, wiping at his face, even though he's still grinning. "This shit's romantic, okay?"

"I swear I've seen him cry more in the last two hours than I've cried in the last two months," Amanda sighs to Jonny at the register. "This is just _sad_."

"I dunno, I think it's kind of nice," Jonny says with a shrug. He's only partially saying that in case Patrick can hear him. Apparently Jonny's into the guy enough that he actually does kind of think it's sweet.

"Ugh, I can't even with any of you," Amanda says, shaking her head. "You say it's romantic. He's crying like _he's_ the one being proposed to. I had to watch Artemi ask Kelli out this morning in a way that was so ridiculous he had to have stolen it from some Russian soap opera. I mean, I've been waiting for that to happen for like three weeks, don't get me wrong, but something about it being Christmas makes you all lose your damn minds and think you have to do something special." She sighs. "Don't stop on my account, though. It's entertaining." She leans in closer to Jonny. "Some of you _still_ need to get your shit together, though," she whispers, patting his back before straightening up and waving at someone Jonny can't see from his place at the register, walking away to greet them.

He'd ask what she means by that, but he's pretty sure he knows. And he's working on it, goddamn it.

"Heyyyyyy, look who's here for her first visit with Santa!" a voice calls out as someone steps into Santa's Cottage ten minutes later, and Jonny looks over to see Sharp and his wife walking in together, a tiny little pink-wrapped bundle nestled in Sharp's arms. "Guys, this is Madelyn."

Patrick's the first one to rush over, and Jonny is the opposite of surprised at this point. Between the fact that Sharp's practically adopted Patrick this season and Patrick's epic soft spot for little kids, Jonny's really just sort of proud that Patrick manages to keep from wrestling the baby away from Sharp to coo at and cuddle.

And even Jonny has to admit Madelyn's adorable. And _tiny_. He peers down at her when Sharp nods him over, and Jonny can't help but grin at her as she stares at him. "Hey there, buddy," he murmurs, touching her tiny little hand with one of his fingertips, wiggling her fist just a little. Sharp snorts, and Jonny flicks his eyes up at him. "What?"

"Did you just call my two-week-old gorgeous baby girl 'buddy'?" Sharp asks, one eyebrow raised. Jonny shrugs, blushing a little. "Toes, you never cease to amaze me." He nuzzles his daughter and grins. "Don't worry, Princess, I'm gonna remind him of that at least once every few years," he says, and Jonny blinks at the implication that Sharp thinks they'll still be in touch that far in the future.

He's...okay with that, actually. More than okay with it. Even when Sharp leans in a few minutes later, eyeing Patrick and his wife with the baby, and nudges Jonny's shoulder. "So," he says conversationally, keeping his voice just a little lower than usual. "Has our dear little Kandy Kane done anything lately that might warrant his place on a particular list? Anything especially _naughty,_ perhaps? Because if you don't know of anything, you should ask. I'm sure you could get him to risk his place on the 'good' list, Twinkle Toes, and you wouldn't even have to ask all that nicel— _ow!"_

Jonny grins savagely at him while Sharp rubs his arm. "Told you I'd get you back by Christmas," Jonny says with a smirk.

Sharp grins through the pain. "I deserved that one." He reaches into the diaper bag hanging under one arm and comes out with a card and a small box. "Merry Christmas, Toes," he says, handing over a card that has "Jonathan" written on it in a feminine script. "Make it a good one, eh?" And with that, he walks back over to his wife, hands Patrick the box, and scoops his daughter up again, giving his wife a kiss on the cheek as they wave to everyone again and head out.

Things die off entirely in the last two hours the mall is open for business, and by the time Q and Angie turn off the equipment an hour before close, most of the staff has already been sent home for the night, instructed to come back any time after the thirtieth to pick up their final paychecks. "If there's anyone who wants to stay and help out with the preliminary close-up, we'd appreciate it," Q tells the half-dozen of them standing near the front gate after thanking them all for sticking around for the whole season. "We're just going to be moving the plywood barriers back into place and locking some things up, same as you saw the place on your first day of orientation. We'd love one to three people to stay for the twenty or thirty minutes it will take, but don't feel you have to."

Patrick's hand goes up with a "count me in" just as Jonny calls out "I'll help out," and they look at each other, exchanging half-smiles, as everyone else seems to take that as their cue to scatter and get the hell out of here and head for whatever other plans they have for the night. 

It doesn't take long to get all of the plywood walls up, and Q and Angie thank them again as they shoo them off in the direction of the locker room and remind them to leave their uniforms inside their lockers. "So," Patrick asks as they strip out of their costumes for the last time, "was being an elf as magical of an experience as you anticipated?"

"I don't know that 'magical' is quite the word I'd use," Jonny says with a snort. "But it wasn't quite what I expected, either. What about you? Fill you with a new sense of faith and hope and Christmas cheer?"

"Meh, I suppose," Patrick says, slipping into a grey-blue Henley that sets off his eyes. "Except for those moments where I watched some kid pee on Santa. Did you know the four of them have a thing together where they all chip in and buy a bottle of scotch for whoever gets peed on the most by the end of the season? Sharp said Bobby and Hoss were just about tied before Abby had Madelyn, but it looks like Hoss pulled ahead in that race, poor dude. I guess last year, it was Ed."

Jonny laughs. "Sucks for him." He's really, really grateful he managed to escape having anything like that happen during his brief stint as Santa. He goes through the pockets of his uniform jacket after he's dressed again, pulling out the card Amanda had slipped him when she'd taken off for the day and the smaller one Sharp's wife had handed over during their visit. He hasn't opened either yet, and he does that while Patrick folds his own uniform neatly, removing an almost obscene number of mini candy canes from the two pockets of his shorts. The one from Amanda has a snowman on the front standing between two puddles, and the message _Merry Christmas to Someone Who Doesn't Meltdown Under Pressure_ on the inside. Underneath, she's written her name and phone number in red along with a note about him giving her a call if he wants to hang out. And under that, scrawled in black pen, are the words _Seriously, Jonny, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!! I'm rooting for you, you big dork!_ He chuckles and slips the card back into the envelope, reaching for Sharp's. It's just a standard photo card, the kind you can do on your own from a drug store, with a photo of Sharp, his wife, and their brand-new baby with _Happy Holidays from the Sharps_ in red script at the bottom. On the back, Sharp's written a quick _hit me up if you want someone to show you the best of Chicago!_ along with his phone number, and Jonny grins, remembering his comment about reminding Jonny he'd called Madelyn "buddy" at their introduction.

He hears Patrick snort, and Jonny looks up to see Patrick put the lid back on a small gift box while he shakes his head and grins. When Jonny raises his eyebrows at him, Patrick shrugs with one shoulder. "Sharp's ridiculous, man."

"No argument there," Jonny says, because he really is. He hesitates. Both he and Patrick are dressed in their street clothes already, and Jonny tosses his coat over his arm, feeling the small package tucked safely into one of the pockets press against his stomach. He should pull it out and hand it to Patrick like he's planned, but it doesn't quite feel right. Next to him, Patrick shifts from one foot to the other, looking like he wants to say something, but can't figure out how to do it. After a long moment of awkward silence, Jonny lets out a long breath. "Hey, you said you aren't going home for Christmas, right?"

Patrick makes a face and shrugs, hunching in a little. "Can't. Not this year."

"Yeah, me either," Jonny says. "You have plans?"

Patrick shakes his head. "No. My roommate left last night. I'll probably just hang out at my apartment, put on whatever Christmas movies are on Netflix, and lounge on the couch all day."

Jonny shakes his head. "No, I mean, do you have plans tonight? Mass or something on campus or anything like that?" He knows Patrick goes to one of the Catholic universities for his grad program, and Jonny doesn't know if they do something special on campus for the holiday, or if it's closed down because it's Christmas vacation.

"Nope, not a thing. Why?"

"It's only five-thirty," Jonny says, rubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand. "I thought maybe there might be a rink around here that was still open for a couple of hours. Did you want to join me before calling it a night?"

Patrick stares at him for a moment before seeming to snap out of his surprise, and he nods eagerly. "Yeah, totally."

"Great." Jonny smiles at him, and Patrick smiles back. 

He has the crazy urge to just grab Patrick by the hand and give it a squeeze, but he doesn't.

They don't head to Warren Park this time, and they don't drive out to Rosemont, either. Instead, Patrick directs him to the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink over at Millennium Park. Other than giving him directions and Jonny asking for a few clarifications, neither of them says much. After a few minutes, Jonny turns the radio on low and Christmas music plays quietly at them for the rest of the drive. It's not uncomfortable, and Jonny finds himself humming to most of the songs as he drives, enjoying the company.

The rink's crowded when they arrive, and Patrick just sort of looks at Jonny and shrugs, saying it _is_ one of the more popular outdoor rinks in Chicago, but he'd picked it because of the atmosphere. "I mean, The Ribbon's nice too, over at Maggie Daley, and I think they might be open, but the setup's different—you can't go faster than everyone else, you can't skate backwards, you can't skate with three or more to a group, you can't stop anywhere on the ice, that sort of thing. This is a little more...casual, I guess. Relaxed."

"I'm good with relaxed," Jonny says with a small smile. "We'll find somewhere else I can kick your ass again next time. Maybe that place up in Rosemont you mentioned."

"Yeah," Patrick says, and he smiles back before skating away and calling for Jonny to catch up. 

It's so crowded that Jonny gives up on any chance at serious conversation and instead asks Patrick about his favorite Christmas movies, then gets him talking about past Christmases and family traditions. He's got Jonny laughing about the time he and his other sisters covered their baby sister in stick-on Christmas bows by the time Jonny slows down and realizes they're nearly alone on the ice. There aren't any kids at all around now, and Jonny only sees one other pair of adults down near one end of the rink, just hanging out against one of the railings. "Hey," he says, slowing down and coasting over to the edge of the rink and waiting for Patrick to join him. "I have something for you. For Christmas."

Patrick raises his eyebrows. "Wasn't my present the eggnog latte?"

Jonny snorts. "Not your real present, no. I just thought you'd like it."

"Oh." He smirks a little. "I have something for you, too. Here, me first."

"Hey, I said I had something for you before you said anything, so you can hold on and open mine first." He hears himself and laughs. "Or we could do it at the same time."

"Deal." Patrick digs into his pants pocket while Jonny reaches into his zippered coat pocket and pulls out the long, narrow cardboard box, the kind bracelets usually come in. He hands it to Patrick and takes the small red velvet pouch Patrick presses into his hand. He loosens the drawstring at the top and gently shakes the thing inside into his palm. It's a thumb drive, the same kind they use for customers at work—the one with the largest amount of storage, shaped like a wrapped gift. 

"Um," Jonny says, looking at it and trying to figure out if he should know what's on it.

"It's all the pictures of the ridiculous faces you made when you were Santa," Patrick says, looking a little nervous, and Jonny blinks before a laugh bursts out of him.

"Oh my God, really?" he asks, still laughing. That's probably the most personalized gift anyone's ever given him. 

"Yeah. I, uh, I put a few others on there, too," Patrick says, still looking a little nervous, but at least he's also smiling now. "There's that really good one of you giving that girl the high-five. And a couple of the ones of you as an elf—I got Angie to give me copies of the ones she took at first, and there's a few of some of us all together, too."

"So there's that one of you and me?" Jonny asks, raising his eyebrows. He hopes so.

"Yeah, I think that might be there," Patrick says, and the way he looks down at his skates and mumbles the answer makes Jonny sure it's definitely on there.

"Thank you," Jonny says. "That's awesome." He grins crookedly. "And I'm sure my mom will be happy to see there's at least one good picture of me as Santa. She's been asking for weeks. I didn't tell her about the Facebook and Twitter accounts."

"Ha, lucky you," Patrick says with a snort. "My sisters found those right away. They weren't even up for an hour before I started getting texts asking about...uh, people."

"People?" Jonny repeats, intrigued by the tone.

"Yeah. You know, the ones of all of us that first week."

"Uh-huh," Jonny says, casual about it. "Hey, I opened yours, so why don't you open mine? Maybe you'll like it."

Patrick grins a little. "I thought you were supposed to know everything about all the best presents and what everyone wanted," he teases. "Or did I lie to that little boy?"

"Well," Jonny asks, raising his eyebrows. "Did you tell Santa what you wanted?"

Patrick laughs. "I didn't have to. At least one of them already knew."

"Oh? And what's that?"

Patrick turns pink. "See?" he says, shoving lightly at Jonny's chest, causing him to slide backwards a few inches. "That's what gives you away as not being the real Santa—not knowing what it is I've been wanting. Don’t you even have a guess?"

The thing is, Jonny does. It's the same thing Jonny's been wanting. He reaches for the box he's handed Patrick, peeling off the small silver bow he'd stuck to the center, and sticks it to his chest. He feels _incredibly_ stupid, but Patrick's eyes go wide and his lips part in surprise. "Something like this, maybe?" he asks, leaning in slowly.

Patrick meets him for the kiss, grabbing at the front of Jonny's jacket and keeping him close. Jonny lets his arms circle around Patrick's waist and kisses him leisurely, enjoying the feeling of Patrick's mouth hot on his in the cold night air and the slide of their tongues together. "Wow," he says when they finally pull apart a little. "So Santa _is_ real. Who knew?" He laughs. "Great, now I'm not sure if Sharp will be happy or disappointed I didn't have to use his present."

"I'm sort of afraid to ask, but what did he get you?" Jonny asks, apprehensive.

"This." He digs into his pocket and pulls out the small box Sharp had given him earlier, then flips the top open. "Read the note, too."

Inside the box is just a little plastic sprig of mistletoe, and Jonny lifts it out and reads the note to himself: _If he doesn't man the fuck up or he's somehow just too dense to see all the other signs, glue this to your damned forehead if you have to._

Jonny laughs and kisses him again until they're both breathing hard, their frozen breaths mingling as they rise in a plume into the sky. "I've been wanting to do that for weeks, you know."

"Then why the hell didn't you?" Patrick demands, glaring. "I was giving every signal I could think of, if that note didn't make it obvious."

"Yeah, I kind of caught some of those," Jonny says dryly. "I just never really found a good time to do anything about it. Because I'm all for letting children learn about love being love and all, but no kid needs to see Santa pressing one of his elves up against the wall and kissing him stupid."

Patrick moans and bites at Jonny's lower lip before drawing it into his mouth and sucking gently on it, a move that lights up nearly half the nerves in Jonny's body. "There's no kids around now," he murmurs against Jonny's mouth. "So what are we waiting for?"

"For you to open your damned present, for one," Jonny says, laughing. "Let me know if you don't like it, and I'll find something different."

Patrick rolls his eyes and slides the small bit of ribbon off the box, removing the lid and tucking it into Jonny's jacket pocket. He squints at the contents, then lifts them out, running his thumb over the slick cardstock rectangles. "Hockey tickets." He looks closer and looks at Jonny, eyebrows raised. "Blackhawks versus the Avs? So...am I on the nice list, or the naughty list?"

"Which do you think?"

Patrick grins slowly. "I don't know. But why don't we go home, I can sit on your lap, and then we can figure out exactly how far up on the good list I can get?" He leans in and nips gently at Jonny's earlobe, sliding one frozen hand inside Jonny's jacket and sweater and dragging his fingers over Jonny's spine, making him shiver as he murmurs, "...or just how far down I can go on the naughty list?"

"I dunno, they're both pretty long lists," Jonny says, voice ragged. He nips at Patrick's neck, enjoying the small moan that earns. "You really think you can get to the top of one or bottom of the other?"

"Oh, Jonny," Patrick says, pulling back and smirking widely. He runs his tongue over his own lower lip, and Jonny can't help following it. "I bet you I can get to both."

"Let's find out," he murmurs. "But we'd better hurry—Santa comes at midnight, remember?" Patrick drags him back in and leans against the railing, laughing softly, and Jonny smiles right back. 

He thinks it's safe to say he got exactly what he wanted for Christmas, after all.

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> There are a number of elves who are "named" but never _quite_ identified as anyone specific within the NHL or WNHL. I had headcanons as to the identity of most of them, but I've left several of them purposefully vague when certain subplots ended up on the metaphorical cutting room floor with only the slightest chance of drabbles focusing on them at some future date. Enjoy your own faves in whichever roles you would like to see them ♥


End file.
